#We were also taught that not all Jewish people are even treated as equal in Israel...which is another post entirely.

[scarletfasinera]

I just don't get how people who are still pro-Israel and pro-Zionist can see in their own news sources even that Hamas has repeatedly tried to return hostages and make exchanges & Israel has repeatedly refused and continued to indiscriminately bomb where everyone knows the hostages are located, has gone out of it's way to physically assault and arrest Jewish Israeli protesters for even small forms of dissent against their actions, and somehow there are still people (most of which do not even live in Israel themselves, though obviously this doesn't speak to everyone) stuck so far up the Israeli government's ass who will still turn around and be like "Yeah this government is making a super awesome decision and definitely cares about Israeli civilians, Jewish people, and the hostages👍" like at what point do you realise that a government does not give a shit about its civilians, their wellbeing, or their people.

[taylovelinus]

every single time i see some goober on instagram (or here on tumblr for that matter) demonizing jews and israel, all I want to ask is:

1) what is your opinion on indigenous rights?

2) are jews white?

3) have you read hamas’ founding document (their 1988 charter)?

because these really get to the root of their hypocrisy. these so-called leftists always claim to support indigenous rights and land back movements until it comes to jewish people, because they have a fundamental lack of understanding of jewish history, jewish ethnic and racial ancestry and identity, and the relationship between jews and that land. (also it shows how American-centric their worldview is that they see this conflict almost exclusively through an overly-simplistic lens of color, wherein they see jews as white/white europeans and palestinians as a generalized, vague group of people of color who are only ever victims instead of as a complex group of people with their own history, culture, and identity). and you KNOW they haven’t read the charter because they sincerely believe this is all solely about “liberation from oppression” and have no idea about the very real and very violent direct, explicit antisemitism that is the very basis for Hamas’ ideology. their original charter completely denies that jewish people originate from the very same land they claim to originate from; they say that they only way for the three abrahamic faiths to coexist peacefully is under islamic rule and regulation (which if you know literally anything about how jews and christians were treated under dhimmi status you’d know that they were treated as second class citizens at best); They directly cite this verse from the quran as justification for a holy war against the jews — "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” (and don’t even get me started that the charter also explicitly states that women are valuable to the movement... but only “because they are makers of men” and because they stay home and rear the children.) I’ll concede that their 2017 revised charter states that they have “no problem with the Jews”, however this is moot when you can easily find video after video of young children saying explicitly that they want to kill Jews (yahood) and eradicate them from the land. these kids aren’t being taught to separate Jews and Israel/Zionism like Hamas leads people to believe (like they have convinced you westerners to believe); make no mistake, it’s not about cleansing the land of only "zionists", it is about eliminating all jewish people, denying their equal claim to the land, and denying their autonomy and right to self-determination.

i strongly, STRONGLY disagree with israel’s policies towards palestinians. i fucking hate Netanyahu, i hate his cronies, i hate that they court the far right in israel, i hate everything regarding how they have handled and continue to handle this entire conflict. and EVERY single other jew i know feels the same way. but jews have been stepped on and abused and slaughtered by their muslim/christian/pagan neighbors for literally thousands of years at this point. they were murdered en masse within living memory (and updated estimates put the death toll of the Holocaust at somewhere between 10-12 million, by the way. we are still finding mass graves in eastern europe all the time). jews deserve to govern themselves and live in their historical ancestral homeland. palestinians also deserve to live in peace and security, and israel has a responsibility to ensure that. but i will never ever support the complete erasure of the state of israel because i fundamentally believe in jewish sovereignty and indigenous rights, regardless of how much time they’ve been away, especially considering they were forced out and into a diaspora -- their leaving the land was not their choice. if the notion of jews standing up and making a space for themselves and ensuring their security upsets you, then perhaps the world should have actually treated them as human beings instead of slaughtering them. if we say that antisemitism is part of this conversation, and that the antisemitism should be condemned, and your first instinct is to either deny or deflect, you really need to examine your own antisemitism and how you have been thinking about this.

[djuvlipen]

I grew up along Romania’s Black Sea coast. My father was the first in his family to graduate from university, and my mother went to a vocational school. Being educated was unusual in our Romani community. My parents raised me with a deep sense of justice and dignity. They told me to be proud of being Roma, while non-Romani people told me there was something wrong with me.

My parents still preserved some aspects of traditional Romani culture: They were obsessed with me maintaining my virginity and being a “good woman.” In many Romani communities, women get married as teenagers. Those who attend school often drop out before high school because they get married, or to care for their younger siblings and perform household chores. Others leave school out of fear of the racism they would face.

Romani women aren’t a monolith. But we all contend with patriarchy and marginalization both inside our culture and from the outside world. The contradictions I have witnessed led me to ask questions and eventually, to discover feminism and to fight for equality. Along this path of activism, however, I learned that I had to define my own understanding of what it means to be a feminist within my Romani identity.

Romani people have endured centuries of injustice across Europe, as an ethnic minority, yet we have a long history of resistance. By the late 1990s, I had graduated from university, gotten married and become a mother. I was also an activist in the Romani movement. I started to wonder what elders meant when they said that we struggled for our “rights.” I learned about the discourse around the universality of human rights. As Romani people, did we really believe in human rights? Or did we only believe in human rights when it came to our rights, Romani people’s rights? What about everyone else? And who is in the position of power to define Romani rights? I debated these questions with my soul mate and fellow Romani activist, Nicolae Gheorghe.

At the same time, I began to question the condition of women and girls in our community, and why we were treated differently from the boys and men around us. Even when I joined the Romani rights movement, I was expected to behave in certain ways that men defined. They determined who was a “good” Romani woman activist. Some Romani male activists tried to monitor my sexuality and called me a “whore” when I had a relationship with a man when I wasn’t married. It was the verses of our beloved Polish Romani poet known as Papusza (whose real name was Bronislawa Wajs) that brought me comfort. She wrote about the Holocaust and of being a woman defying constraints and traditional roles for women, for which she was ostracized by the community. Where were women’s rights within the discussion of Romani rights?

Then came feminism. I met Debra Schultz the American Jewish historian, who could see all these questions burning inside me. She bought me the first books about feminism that I read, including works by thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir. But I really fell in love with the work of Black feminists Angela Davis and bell hooks, whose book, “Ain’t I a Woman” became like a bible for me. And later, I met law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who introduced me to the concept of intersectionality between race and gender. Finally, the way I saw the surrounding world and my Roma world became clearer to me.

Feminism gave me the lens to question the world’s power dynamics, from private spaces to international politics. Despite this intellectual awakening, I still went on to face horrible racism when I met white feminists, who said they didn’t see the point of including Romani women in feminist agendas when there was already an existing Romani rights movement. When there was a spike in racism against Romani people in Europe around 2005-07, I reflected on how to practice a feminism that did not erase my Roma identity and that did not reinforce the oppression of my community.

Neither of the two social movements that I have moved between — feminism and Romani struggles — wanted Romani women’s concerns to be highlighted unless those in charge got to decide how to portray such issues. Every social movement has its prejudices, I learned.

So, what is Romani feminism? To me, it means I have the freedom to choose what version of a Romani woman I want to be. Romani feminism is the force that makes it possible for our communities to grow and to challenge others around us. Our feminism reminds us that the greater Romani movement should not only be about how to get into the structures of power, but how we should never forget the local communities, and the people. We should be close to our people at the local level, in their daily lives, while challenging both racism and sexism.

We Romani feminists reiterate pride in being Roma by constructing and reconstructing through archive, memory and art, the possibility for the next generation to practice a new identity, without the burden and control that our ancestors faced. Our work ranges from creating collaborations such as the Roma Women’s Initiative, a group of female Romani leaders across Europe, to providing social services to Romani women who continue to face harassment, racism and other challenges. We are creating our own ways to help each other.

Some may call me a pioneer, or a traitor for splintering the Romani rights movement. For others, I am not radical enough. But after three decades as a Romani feminist, I am still acting against “anti-gypsyism,” manifesting the love of my people, crying out loud with pain when I feel and see how others hate us.

Nicoleta Bitu is a Romani feminist activist and scholar based in London.

[girlactionfigure]

“I give my child in your care, raise my child as if it were yours.”

These words were written by the mother of a six year old Jewish girl Rami, who was smuggled out of the Jewish ghetto in Nazi occupied Warsaw, Poland, during the Second World War. Little Rami was placed into foster care with her mother’s Polish friends on the Aryan side of the city and, unlike her mother, ultimately survived the war. The person who was instrumental in making Rami’s survival possible was a woman named Irena Sendler, a social worker and Polish resistance operative who helped save 2,500 Jewish children like Rami during the Holocaust.

Beginnings

Irena was born in 1910 in Warsaw into a Roman Catholic family. Her father, Stanislaw Krzyzanowski was a physician and a researcher in infectious diseases. He was a humanitarian and an idealist, who helped found the Polish Socialist Party. He believed in democracy, equal rights, universal health care, and an end to child labor, and was even expelled from university in Poland for leading strikes and protests advocating for those goals.

When Irena was two, the family moved outside of Warsaw, to the village of Otwock, where Stanislaw set up his practice for the treatment of tuberculosis. The village was fifty percent Jewish, and that percentage included the poorest of residents. Unlike other doctors in the area, Stanislaw treated everyone, the rich and poor alike, despite the poor not being able to pay. “If someone else is drowning, you have to give a hand,” he would often say.

Irena grew up in close contact with the Jewish villagers. She played with their children, and by age six even spoke fluent Yiddish. At home Irena’s family life was warm and nurturing. Stanislaw loved his little girl very much and hugged and kissed her so often that Irena’s aunts would warn him not to spoil her. “We don’t know what her life will be like,” he’d reply. “Maybe my hugs will be her best memory.”

In 1916 an epidemic of typhoid fever swept through the village and Stanislaw chose to be on the front lines. Typhoid, a bacterial disease spread through food, water, and close contact with infected persons, was especially prevalent in poor communities with bad sanitation. Unlike other well off villagers who isolated themselves to avoid contact with the sick, Stanislaw continued caring for patients and later that year succumbed to the disease himself. He died shortly after.

But Stanislaw’s spirit lived on in his daughter, and as Irena matured she resembled her father more and more in her beliefs and actions. She majored in social welfare at the University of Warsaw, and interned in charitable welfare clinics where the poor could get a free education and legal assistance. She also started becoming more politically involved, joining the Polish Socialist Party that her father helped start and beginning to engage in protests and activism herself.

In 1935 anti-Semitic sentiment was on the rise in Poland, and at Polish universities an informal rule nicknamed the “bench ghetto” was introduced. “A rule was established at the University segregating the Catholics from the Jewish students,” Irena recalled. “The Catholics were to sit on the chairs to the right and Jews on the chairs to the left. I always sat with Jews and, therefore, I was beaten by anti-Semites together with Jewish students.”

Later, like her father, Irena was suspended from university for boycotting the labeling of campus identity cards with the word “Aryan” to differentiate non-Jewish students from Jewish ones. “I was taught since my earliest years that people are either good or bad. Their race, nationality, and religion do not matter — what matters is the person.”

The War

On September 1, 1939, after the signing of a non-aggression pact between themselves, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. The country was split in half, with the eastern side going to Soviet Union and the western to the Nazis. Warsaw fell to the Nazis.

Overnight Jews became second class citizens in Warsaw. They couldn’t hold state or government positions, couldn’t own businesses, they had to register ownership of property, and lost access to their bank accounts.

Barred from offering social services to the Jewish population officially, Irena with a few friends began to circumvent the rules by faking paperwork in order to do so. This was the beginning of Irena’s resistance operations. Soon Irena and her resistance cell were providing money, food, and clothing to thousands of Jews in Warsaw.

A year after the invasion, moving forward with their ultimate goal of Jewish genocide, the Nazis established a ghetto for Warsaw’s Jews. 350,000 Jews, nearly 30% of the city’s entire population, were imprisoned in a 1.3 square mile ghetto. The ghetto was surrounded by a ten foot tall brick wall crowned with ribbons of barbed wire.

Irena sprang into action looking for blank documents that could give Aryan identities to Jewish friends destined for the ghetto. And once the ghettoization of Jews was complete, she continued helping in any way she could.

Life in the ghetto was miserable. The Nazis rationed roughly 200 calories of food per person per day. Death by starvation was common. Sanitation was terrible with refuse and human corpses littering the streets. There was a shortage of soap, clothing, and the means to heat living spaces. Many people froze to death. Disease was everywhere, including tuberculosis, dysentery, spotted fever, and typhoid fever, the same disease that claimed Irena’s father’s life.

But Irena was undaunted. Because of her work with Warsaw’s Department of Health and Social Services, she received a pass from the Epidemic Control Department that allowed her official passage in and out of the ghetto. She immediately began making daily visits, sometimes multiple per day, to smuggle food, money, and doses of typhus vaccine into the ghetto. She would hide items in the false bottom of her bag, or in small pockets sewn into a padded bra. Many women had their bras altered with padding and pockets. “It was a joke in wartime Warsaw that women’s breasts had grown dramatically everywhere in the city since the arrival of the Germans.”

Children

Sometimes Irena would smuggle candy or dolls for the ghetto’s children. Children were particularly vulnerable in the ghetto, succumbing faster to malnutrition, freezing, and to more varied diseases than adults. Some families facing starvation relied on their children to obtain food by smuggling it from the Aryan side of the city. Other families sent children across the wall hoping they would fare better as orphans on the Aryan side than inside the ghetto. In the beginning of 1942, about 4,000 children lived on the streets of the Aryan side. 2,000 of them were Jewish.

That year, fearing Nazi soldiers’ contamination with typhus and other diseases from children living on the street, the chief of the Nazi police ordered for Warsaw’s social services to get all homeless children on the Aryan side of the city off the streets and into orphanages and other local institutions. The roundups yielded a number of Jewish children, many of whom Irena and her network helped disappear into private homes and orphanages under false Polish identities. But there were thirty two Jewish kids that could not be placed, and so, in order to save them from execution, Irena had to smuggle them back into the ghetto. Knowing what was awaiting them there, Irena was devastated at not having an alternative solution. She vowed to never again return a single child to the ghetto, and started, along with her associates, an operation to smuggle Jewish children out of the ghetto and to provide them with false Polish identities and caring homes on the Aryan side of the city.

The price for helping a Jewish child in wartime Warsaw was execution, and Irena and her core group of twenty to twenty five mostly women operatives, risked their lives daily to save each and every child. Children were smuggled out of the ghetto in a variety of ways. There were secret routes to the Aryan side of the city via sewers and underground corridors. Children were able to get across by sneaking through an old courthouse and a Catholic church that stood on the border of the ghetto. Irena’s epidemic control pass allowed her to officially bring a child out of the ghetto for treatment if they were ill with tuberculosis. Children with or without the disease were brought out this way. Some kids were hidden in ambulances, under floorboards or dirty rags, or in coffins along with dead bodies. The Nazis were terrified of disease and performed only cursory checks before waving ambulances through. The youngest, including babies, had to be sedated with tranquilizers and hidden in trucks in toolboxes, in sacks masquerading as laundry or potatoes, or under vegetable boxes. Some were left in briefcases on early morning streetcars that ran in and out of the ghetto and later picked up by a friend.

Once out of the ghetto, children had to take on new identities in order to integrate into Polish society. Sometimes documents were faked, other times legitimate blanks could be found. If children looked too Jewish, they had makeovers to make them look more Polish. Sometimes it was as easy as dying a child’s hair, other times Jewish boys had to become girls in order to prevent the Nazi authorities from checking for circumcisions.

Escaped children went on to live in homes of friends, in convents, in group homes, orphanages, or religious institutions, and Irena kept a list of each and every child placed with the hope of reuniting them with families after the war. She encoded and recorded only the most essential information such as names, addresses, and an account of any money that parents gave to help with caretaking on cigarette paper that nightly she prepared to throw out of her kitchen window in case the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, ever came looking for her. Eventually, when it became too dangerous to keep the list at home, she buried it in glass bottles under an apple tree in a friend’s garden.

By this time Irena was already having nightmares on a regular basis. Not only did she worry about the children who would certainly be killed if they were ever discovered, she also worried about the families that were risking their lives to hide them. On top of everything, Irena was the sole person who knew the detailed histories of all the smuggled children. If anything were to happen to her, that information would be irretrievable.

Capture

In the fall of 1943, the Gestapo found and arrested a woman who ran a laundrette that the resistance used as a drop-off point for messages and packages. Charged with conspiring with the resistance, the woman was tortured and ultimately broke, giving up names of resistance operatives. One of those names was Irena Sendler’s. Days after, the Gestapo pounded on Irena’s door in the middle of the night. She was arrested, beaten, interrogated, and sent to Pawiak, a secret prison for intelligentsia and those politically involved. Most prisoners interned at Pawiak never left alive.

The Gestapo repeatedly tortured Irena for information, breaking her legs and feet, and permanently scarring her body. Despite the agony, Irena never said a word. She knew what divulging information would mean, a death sentence for thousands of children, friends and families. As luck would have it, the Gestapo thought they had captured only a fringe resistance operative, not the head of children’s division of the resistance movement, which meant Irena received no special treatment. Certainly if they realized who they were dealing with, they would have taken extra measures.

Irena lived at the prison for four months until her execution date was set for January 20, 1944. During the days, when she was not being tortured for information, Irena worked as a washerwoman cleaning soiled Nazi underwear. One day, when the Nazis found the laundry work not to their satisfaction, they lined up all the washerwomen against a wall and shot in the head every other one. Irena was one of the ones who survived.

On the morning of January 20th, a Nazi officer came to take Irena to the courtyard where she was to be shot. She was led down a corridor, but instead of being taken into the waiting room where she was to await her execution, the officer led her out of the prison and into the street. He released her and told her to run. As Irena later found out her friends in the resistance had bribed the Nazi with what today amounts to $100,000 to secure her escape.

End of the war and legacy

Once free, Irena went into hiding, and soon resumed her operations with the resistance. She continued rising in ranks until she was running meetings and setting agendas. In the summer of 1944, with the Soviets advancing, and the Nazis retreating, the Polish resistance army attempted to liberate Warsaw. They fought for two months, but were ultimately defeated by the Nazis. In response to the uprising, Heinrich Himmler, a most high ranking SS officer and the person responsible for forming and operating Nazi death camps, gave the order to kill all Polish residents of Warsaw and to level the entire city. “The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth…,” he ordered. “No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation.” Ultimately more than 400,000 people were killed and eighty percent of Warsaw was destroyed by the retreating Nazi army. Irena miraculously survived the destruction.

After the Nazis were driven out of Warsaw, Irena and a friend went to dig up the list of children they had hidden in bottles. They searched and searched for the tree under which the list was buried, but found only rubble. Irena then set out, along with her friends, to recreate the list from memory. She continued working for decades helping reunite children with their families, and even adopted two orphaned Jewish girls herself.

Irena lived until 98, and passed away in Warsaw in 2008. Until the very end of her life she felt that she did not do enough to help children during the war.

Five years before her death Irena received Poland’s highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle, but she never enjoyed being called a hero.

“Let me stress most emphatically that we who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes… Indeed, that term irritates me greatly.” 

“Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did was not an extraordinary thing. It was normal.”

The children Irena saved during the war continued to call and visit her until the end of her life.

Historical Snapshots

[queermediastudies]

Putting the “Camp” Back in “Conversion Camp”

How But I’m a Cheerleader (2000) Makes a Comedy Out Of Conversion Therapy (And Whether or Not it Should)

Jamie Babbit’s cult classic, But I’m a Cheerleader (2000) paints a satirical portrait of what most queer youth fear most, conversion therapy. The titular cheerleader, Megan (Natasha Lyonne) is your typical all-American good girl. She goes to church, she never drinks, and she is even dating the high school football star. She is the kind of daughter that white, middle-class Americans dream of having, with one glaring exception. Megan is a lesbian. With the help of the self proclaimed “ex-gay” counselor Mike (RuPaul), her family and friends stage an intervention before shoving her off to True Directions, a conversion camp run by Mary Brown (Cathy Moriarty). Once there, she realizes that she is in fact a lesbian, one who is in love with her fellow camper, Graham (Clea Duvall). 

The film is hilariously over the top, hence it’s description as a camp classic. Babbit uses exaggerated gender roles to illustrate the intersection between gender performativity and sexuality. Unfortunately this decision to poke fun at heteronormative stereotypes come at a cost. Even the gay characters are uncomfortable stereotypes, and the film ignores any questions of intersectionality. Moreover, Babbit does not always handle the horrors of conversion therapy with the kind of tact and grace such a subject demands. Essentially, while the film attempts to show the ridiculousness of gay conversion, its use of stereotypes and one-dimensional characters lashes back to harm the very people Babbit is speaking on behalf of. 

One of the most easily recognizable problems with But I’m a Cheerleader is its overwhelming whiteness. There are all of four characters of color, and only one of those characters is a woman. Jan (Katrina Philips), the one woman of color, is treated terribly in the film. She shows up with a unibrow, dark mustache, shaved head, and baggy clothes. When she introduces herself, she smiles and says, “I’m Jan, and I’m a softball player, and I’m a homosexual” (00:14:36). Essentially, Jan is a lot of outdated stereotypes about lesbians put into one character. The twist, though, is that Jan is actually straight.

This is a good example of how Babbit attempts to tell an important message, but she fails to see the harm she causes while doing it. Jan’s character is essentially Megan’s foil. She is everything a “dyke” is supposed to be, except that she is not attracted to girls. Megan, on the other hand is a lesbian that completely defies all of the stereotypes that Jan encompasses. Both women are meant to discourage our tendency to make assumptions based on appearance. While that is a wonderful message, the problem is that Jan is the only woman of color. There is a definite lack of positive representation for masculine women of color, so there is nothing inherently wrong with having a black, butch character. However, black women are often portrayed as more masculine than white women in both fiction and non-fiction. One need only look at the conversations the media has had about Serena Williams or the New Jersey Four to see how black women are ascribed a level of masculinity that white women are not. In the film, this is exacerbated by the consistent assertion that Jan is ugly, which is never challenged by any of the characters. The motive behind Jan’s character was excellent, but it is clear that the consequences were not thought out. Babbit could have avoided the problematic elements of her character by adding in more women of color, giving the masculine stereotypes to a white character, or by having a conversation about how her blackness and dark facial hair affected how she was treated. Instead, the meaning of Jan’s character is one-dimensional, and she comes off as the butt of the joke rather than the harbinger of an important message. 

Jan is not the only character wrought with gay stereotypes. Andre (Douglas Spain) is the most stereotypically gay man in the film. Whether by coincidence or not, he is also a person of color. Regardless, his character is so stereotypical it is almost offensive. The boys are taught to play football, chop wood, and fix cars in the hopes that heteronormative activities will straighten them out, so to speak. Andre fails miserably at all of these tasks, which, again, is fine in concept. What is offensive is the way he flails about and shrieks in a way that is so unnatural it plays out like a bigot’s idea of what a gay man is really like.

There are other issues of intersectionality and representation that are not quite so garishly offensive. For example, Joel (Joel Michaely) is Jewish, and very devoutly so considering he is never seen with his yarmulke. The True Directions programs, however, is very Christian-oriented. This tension between the two religions is never addressed, and that is truly a shame. Moreover, race is not mentioned once. As previously mentioned, there are horrendously few characters of color. Even worse, however, is the fact that not one of them has a storyline that acknowledges the difficulties of being a gay person of color. The film is a comedy, so no one should expect an especially fruitful in depth analysis, but there is not even one or two off handed jokes about it. The fact of the matter is that the characters of color are not fully realized people. They are surface level representations that rattle off jokes. It should be acknowledged that pretty much all of the characters have this shallow level of development (such is the price one pays when creating a satire that makes such liberal use of stereotypes), but that is no excuse for not acknowledging how race plays a factor in homophobia and gender norms. Much of the movie is centered around learning how to “act straight”, but performances of gender and sexuality shift when different identities come into play. Harris and Holman Jones explain how intersectional performances play into feeling like a minority, “In “feeling queer,” racialized subjects intersect with religious, gendered and sexualized minoritarian subjects to “do” minoritarianism differently” (Harris and Holman Jones, 2017, p.574). In a film that is all about acting out the roles society demands, ignoring how people of color are expected to perform their minoriatarianism does an injustice to the topic at hand.

There is also a good bit of homonormativity, a concept that describes the push for queer people to fulfill heteronormative roles even in gay relationships. The three same sex couples we see in the film follow the general idea that one person in the relationship should be more feminine and the other more masculine, though some couples embody this concept more than others. Dolph (Dante Basco) and Clayton (Kip Pardue) are the couple that fit this mold the least, but one there are remnants of it in their relationship. Dolph is on the varsity football team, and Clayton is generally more demure and submissive. Unlike Dolph and Clayton, Graham and Megan fulfill their homonormative roles with a good amount of clarity. Graham is by no means butch, but she is more masculine than she is feminine, at least by society’s standards. She has short hair, she never wears skirts, and she has a tendency toward profanity and vulgarity. Megan, on the other hand, is, well, a cheerleader. She only wears skirts, she wears her hair long, and she spends most of the moving gasping at any mention of sex. Finally, there is the old gay couple, Lloyd (Wesley Mann) and Larry (Richard Moll) who are “ex-ex-gays” as the film calls them. Once again we see the more feminine half of the couple, Lloyd, performing typically feminine activities like setting up dinner and getting in touch with his emotions. Larry, on the other hand, is a curt, large, bearded man who is quick to anger. The two could easily fit in to any heterosexual sitcom. 

While domesticity is the goal for many queer couples, the film ventures into what Duggan (2002) calls, “equality politics,” (p. 44). Essentially, it is the trap that members of the gay community where they ask the powers that be for marriage and military equality. After that, they feel that there is nothing left to do, so they promise to depoliticize gay culture. Duggan describes them best when she writes, “These organizations, activists, and writers, promote ‘color-blind’ anti-affirmative action racial politics, conservative-libertarian ‘equality feminism,’ and gay ‘normality,’” (Duggan, 2002, p. 44). In it’s failure to acknowledge race and the enforcement of heterosexual roles onto gay characters, the film certainly demonstrates these equality politics and a message in favor of homonormativity.

Perhaps the most difficult to address issue with the film is the premise itself. It begs the question: should conversion therapy be used for comedy? Moreover, questions of how to do that respectfully arise, and, frankly, there were several instances where Babbit failed to do so. Babbit’s own history is important in understanding why she created a comedy about conversion therapy. She herself is a lesbian, and her mother worked at New Directions, a rehabilitation center for teens and young adults. Obviously, the name of the conversion camp, true directions, is a play on New Directions, and Babbit further explains the connection between her mother's career and But I’m a Cheerleader in an interview with Wheeler Winston Dixon. “So I'd always wanted to do a comedy about growing up in rehab, and the absurdity of that atmosphere. But I didn't want to make fun of twelve-step programs for alcoholism and drugs, because they really help people, but when you turn it into Homosexuals Anonymous, then I felt that was a situation I could have fun with” (Dixon, 2015, p. 2). Babbit likely felt that conversion therapy would be a harmless target because making fun of the programs and their leaders is not damaging to anyone. However, as we have seen with Jan and Andre, the queer community was not spared from the ridicule. Moreover, while belittling the programs themselves, Babbit made light of some truly traumatizing experiences. For instance, the teens are given electric wands, which they must use to shock themselves when they have “unnatural” thoughts. Pain-based aversion therapy is a very real, traumatizing experience that too many people have had to face. But I’m a Cheerleader makes a mockery of it by using it for a number of sex jokes and showing that it does not hurt that bad. Graham playfully shocks Megan with it, eliciting a yelp, but not much else. Another girl in the program, Sinead (Katherine Towne), proclaims that she likes pain. She is then shown in multiple scenes using the electricity as a masturbatory tool. There may be arguments in favor of this detail, perhaps that Babbit was trying to show how pain can be reclaimed and used for pleasure, but I personally find it tasteless. It is especially questionable since Babbit herself has never gone through that trauma. When creating gallows humor, one must examine if they are on the gallows or a member of the crowd. A person on the gallows who laughs is using humor to cope. A person in the crowd who laughs at the man getting hanged is simply cruel. It seems that Babbit believes that she, having experienced lesbianism, has just as much of a right to stories of conversion therapy as someone who actually experienced it. She does not. This is not to say that the premise of this film is off limits. Babbit simply should have been more careful in how she portrayed the horrors of conversion therapy.

But I’m a Cheerleader has the difficult job of being a breakout text. Cavalcante explains that a breakout text accomplishes three things, “ Breakout texts also generate three definitive breaks: (a) a break into the cultural main-stream, (b) a break with historical representational paradigms, and (c) a breaking into the every day lives of the audiences they purport to represent,” (Cavalcante, 2017, p. 2). It may have not been hugely successful, but it was popular enough to make its way into straight communities. Moreover, it breaks plenty of ideas of historic representation. Finally, it made its way into gay communities, and it has continued to live comfortably within them. This is why we need to be so hard on the film. As with anything that may be the foundation for someone’s knowledge about a topic (i.e. homosexuality, conversion therapy, gender non conforming heterosexuals, etc.) there is a responsibility to provide quality representations. Babbit sometimes fails to do so, and if that those failures are not examined critically, then harmful information will be mindlessly spread around.

As a pansexual woman, I am always looking for content that portrays strong, sapphic characters. I am also always on the fence about using tragedies to create humor. I am stuck between knowing that some people use humor to cope with trauma and wondering if people should be laughing at atrocities. That is what drew me to But I’m a Cheerleader. I enjoyed the film, in spite of its flaws, but I do have to say I was a bit hurt and disappointed. I am Latinx, and I have been teased about my dark facial hair in the past. Hearing Jan get torn into for her unibrow and mustache while the pretty, white women around her did nothing was really upsetting. Moreover, as someone who is undecided about particularly dark humor, I really do feel that Babbit was tactless in her making of this film. Still, there were elements that I truly loved. As mentioned in the title and the introduction, this film is beautifully camp. The 1950′s aesthetic that the straight people emulate obscures the setting of the film, and the garish colors tell a story all on their own. The gay men are forced to wear bright blue, and the lesbians are forced to wear pink. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, outside of the program wears brown, obscuring their own identities and showing just how they all fit in together. The set design is also used in a really stunning way. Every once in a while something, typically something that represents sex or genitalia, is placed in the background to remind viewers that the sexuality of the participants will never be erased.

When it comes down to it, But I’m a Cheerleader has heart, and it has a great message. It is immensely funny, and the characters are shallow but lovable. The film’s best attribute is that it shows that anyone can be gay or straight, regardless of our assumptions based on how well they perform gender norms. The criticism shown above should not discourage anyone from watching the film. Rather, it should encourage people to watch it while being able to recognize and accept the ways in which it can be hurtful. It can have harmful stereotypes, unhelpful ideologies, and tactless jokes, but it also has love, bite, and an abundance of humor.

References:

Cavalcante, A. (2017). Breaking Into Transgender Life: Transgender Audiences' Experiences With “First of Its Kind” Visibility in Popular Media. Communication, Culture & Critique, 10(3), 538-555. doi:10.1111/cccr.12165

Dixon, W. W. (2015). An Interview With Jamie Babbit. Post Script, 34(2).

Duggan, L. (2003). Equality, Inc. In The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy (pp. 43-66). Boston: Beacon Press.

Harris, A., & Holman Jones, S. (2017). Feeling Fear, Feeling Queer: The Peril and Potential of Queer Terror. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(7), 561-568. doi:10.1177/1077800417718304

[normal-thoughts-official]

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHDBpb/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHCTwq/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHUxHb/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHDxww/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHCtVm/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeHHCvo3/

She's hilarious but there's two videos where she starts to speak more mumblingly

ok first of all these are brilliant and i'm losing my mind and i love you, thank you for curating these to me.

i will transcribe them in a bit but i just felt the need to leave this "little" (it's long sorry) note:

as someone who's been raised catholic i just want to say that she is pretty wrong about almost everything she said about catholics, and i say that as someone who hates catholicism with my whole mind body and soul and who's been traumatized by this stupid fucking faith to the point where i can't get into a church without breaking into sobs dauihdasiuh. the catholic guilt is real but catholics are absolutely allowed to divorce and use contraceptives, and also have sex before marriage. the first one is met with some guilt esp from women altho honestly i think it's more due to mysoginist reasons than religious reasons, and the second and third ones are commonpractice and if you say that it's wrong and bad everyone will think you're a fucking weirdo

and even with the divorce thing, while the guilt is there (im pretty sure half the reason my mom doesn't divorce is because she would feel guilty about it, although again, i feel like that's got very little to do with religion and way more with internalized mysoginy), i cannot stress enough that divorce is allowed, almost everyone i know has divorced parents and they're all catholics. the church's official position is kinda weird (as of now pope francis basically said that it's "morally necessary" in some cases but he also referred to ppl who divorced and remarried as "imperfect", but like, it hasn't been forbidden for years, so much so that people get second marriages at catholic churches literally all the time, and i kinda feel like ppl overestimate how much ppl care about what the pope says. at least here in latam, cuz we've always kind of freestyled religion since it was imposed on us anyway, but like... in my experience the average catholic practitioner is INCREDIBLY less conservative than the vatican and i feel like most people don't even know what the pope says or doesn't say. and i'm saying that as someone whose grandfather almost became a priest and only gave that up because he fell in love with my grandmother, and he's been a ferverent catholic his entire life. also two of his kids divorced, one married a divorced woman, one is gay and living together without marriage with his divorced boyfriend, one never married, and one had two kids before marriage which necessarily means that they fucked, and none of that was ever a problem to him. oh, also, my dad had divorced AND he was a buddhist when him and my mom married. currently he is a spiritist)

i think it might be possible that u technically have to ask for "permission" to the church to remarry in church, but in practice i think it's more of a ritualistic thing than actually asking for permission, cuz i've never met a single person who had them say no. it was pretty much "hey local bishop guy so my husband sucked and we divorced can i marry again" "sure lol". obviously it sucks that you even have to ask, but it's nowhere near as strict as people seem to think

the contraceptive thing is also absurd. like i cannot stress enough that my family would absolutely flip if they found out i DIDN'T use contraception. that was always something that my family reinforced very strongly, ESPECIALLY my grandpa. i've never met a single catholic who does not teach their kids to use contraceptives. my high school was catholic (literally named the Holy Cross, fun times, although they didn't impose the faith or anything. in fact almost half of the students in that school are jewish, but like, still, there was a priest in the school board) and we were taught to use contraceptives, put the condom in a banana and the whole pizzazz during biology class

like yeah the bible says not to but it also says not to mix different fabrics and that doesn't mean it's actually a thing that's reinforced in most catholic communities doaihdaj at least not here in latam. in here non-catholic christians are actually way more hardcore about the puritanism rules than catholics are, particularly evangelicals, which are kind of overtaken the catholics' traditional role of being colonialist fuckers as they are mostly from the US so they come to further US imperialism through religion here. watch out catholic church they're coming for ur crown

and even outside of puritanism, "non practicing catholics" are absolutely a thing like ppl who are catholic but don't even pray or go to church, much less care about that shit douahdsaohj so like the stereotype that all catholics are like the very small minority of hardcore catholics is like the stereotype that every muslim lives by the ultra-conservative muslim rules. it's not true and it's stereotypical and taking the minority ultra conservatives to be the rule when they are not

there's also the fact that there are many different currents of thought inside the catholic church (a little bit like with judaism although way less flexible than judaism is), some of which are very conservative, some of which are progressive. here in latam in particular the teology of liberation is extremely popular (it's the one my family subscribes to, and i'm pretty sure it was actually born here in latam) and it's pretty progressive. for catholics, that is

and like mandatory disclaimer that i am coming from my own experiences with latam catholicism, which i feel is different from other catholic countries - my polish friends for example have experiences with catholicism that are a lot closer to those stereotypes than mine ever were - but since most of the catholic population in the world is brazilian (like me), and second place goes to mexicans, i feel pretty comfortable taking it as a ruler to measure general catholic practices

with that being said, however, the catholic church can choke and die in a fire as it is a symbol of colonialism first and foremost, its proselitism is one of the worst things ever, and even the progressive currents are still way too damn conservative for my tastes. i just don't feel comfortable transcribing something that i know is incorrect and stereotypical (and that in some cases is used to further oppression like with the Irish in the UK or armenian catholics, and i've even had some US-diaspora latinos hear some incredible things from gringos who assumed they were catholic, or, in their beautiful words, "had latino religion". but obviously in most cases catholics are the oppressors, especially here in the third world)

also, her assessment in the third video is absolutely correct. A/B/O IS just conservative gender roles born of christian and catholic imposition transposed to a fictional world where the genders have slightly different names, which is why i, as a rule, hate it dauhdsaiuhdauhda and even though the assessment that catholicism is thaaat much more conservative than other christian religions (it's absolutely not, it's Exactly As Conservative) isn't true, catholicism is still where most if not all of western conservative rethoric is born of, and ugh, it's so refreshing to see someone understand this and put it into words so well

so yeah keep that note in mind but anyway, transcriptions:

[Video transcription #1: in reply to a tiktok question, which says, "now i'm thinking about the catholic guilt that would come with it oh my god". user @Omarsbigsister is saying, "good morning", she then covers her mouth as she starts to laugh, before continuing, "I guess I'm the religious omegaverse tiktoker now. I did not know catholic guilt was more than just sex, I thought it was just about sex, but nO. people who are catholic, if you don't know, they get guilt over every little thing, they get guilty when they eat, they have guilt when, like... [dismissive gesture] they have fun... it's messed up *cut* [mumbling i don't understand, sorry] in which you HAVE to be bonded before... *sticks tongue out* *cut* and catholics, from what i know, uhm, cannot get divorced, so you can't be unbonded, you're stuck for life with that alpha or omega, and then you can't use contraceptives so if you have a heat or rut, good luck, you cannot escape it, and on top of that, they preach abstinence, right, so if you're having a heat or rut in your teen years you just gotta deal with it alone like you are not allowed to be bonded, so, that would be really intense."

#2: in response to a question, which said, "follow up question: if in the real world hijabis are women, in ABO universe would hijabis be omegas of all genders?". the user is shown stroking her chin in contemplative silence for a long time, before she says, "actually, both men and women have to wear a hijab, it's just more visible on women, but men also have to cover from like, the neck all the way down... so like when you see them [mumbling i don't understand, sorry] that's their hijab. *cut* Islam is actually treating men and women, like, fairly somewhat equally, so, I feel like in omegaverse alphas, betas, and omegas would all be held to the same standards, and alphas and omegas would also be held by the same standards but then culture would ruin it, just like western culture has ruined it. for your other question. 'would muslim families prefer betas more, and would betas be spiritual leaders', i feel like everyone prefers betas more, but then also Islam came to like, uplift women [a written note then shows up, which says, "like girls are seen as a blessing to have as kids"], so like omegas would be seen as like, a blessing to have as a child.

#3: in response to another tiktok question, which says, "fun fact bestie you cannot get divorced in the catholic religion even if your spouse is abusive and horrible to you so in omegaverse how would that work?". she replies, "the reason that Abrahamic religions seemingly fit so well into the omegaverse universe is because catholicism specifically and christianity, uhm, all the gender norms and all the cultural norms especially in the west came from catholicism and christianity, they were forced on people, and then you know, people might not be religious, but the norms stay. but now you have omegaverse which is basically just a bunch of like youth exploring the youth through this, like, werewolf fanfiction trope, using all these gender roles that you have in society on their head, so, really, what i'm saying, is that... omegaverse is just catholicism fanfiction"

#4: she looks at the camera and says, "getting islamophobic comments is one thing, but getting islamophobic comments that say that muslims cannot be in the omegaverse".... she then breaks into laughter for a solid 30 seconds

#5: she is shown reading out loud, in a mock-outraged face, a tweet that says, "about to murder tiktok they try to make Ramadan a 'quirky' trend. it's a religious holiday. stop it, get some help. /srsly /g.", then a follow-up tweet, which says, "saw a tweet saying on tiktok they are asking questions about how ramadan would work in omegaverse. i'm done with y'all, just say you disrespect muslims and go". then another tweet by a different user, which says, "i tried to read, i got secondhand embarrassment-" they then break out of character and say, "oh, that's fair," before going back, "if it wasn't ramadan i'd be boxing those people right now. those people should be ashamed to even think that way wtf". then another, which replies, "well i'm not celebrating it, so as a non-muslim, i'll happily box them". then, back to her normal voice, she says, "i really was just making a silly little tiktok and seeing that stuff really hurts... i'm just kidding, i can't keep a straight face. you like minecraft youtubers, what are you gonna do to me? what are you gonna do to me?"

#6: in reply to a tiktok ask, which said, "prince philip was an omega". she slowly films herself as she takes a walk, finds the nearest trash bin, and tosses the phone there, before putting the lid over the box. end ID]

[confessionsofcalling]

Multi-faith Ponderings

It seems obvious that as believers we should engage with people of other faiths, if we are ever to break out of our Christian bubble and actually engage with and do good in the world, we need to learn from others. Faith is not unique to Christianity, any spiritual practice or religion involves faith, even, and dare I say especially, atheism.

It seems to me that the issue with Christian thought is that it is incredibly exclusive, often riddled with issues of being high and mighty, with a large air of “anyone not in this club is wrong and doomed to hell forever!”. I've introduced a concept there, if we are to engage with people of other faiths, how do we do it well? I can tell you how we do it badly, by starting the conversation with, I think I’m right and you’re wrong and thus you're going to be doomed to hellfire for the rest of eternity. Now I don't claim to know quite yet where I stand with my views of salvation and faith, I don't feel called particularly strongly to any of the schools of thought whether that be pluralism, inclusivism or any other idea. I’d like to spend some time learning about each school of thought and praying over them. Maybe that can be my next lockdown activity once I've stopped with my jigsaw hyperfixation. Anyway, engaging with other faiths I think should start with common ground, and also, the acknowledgement that no one truly knows who’s right, and even that we might all be wrong.

Being raised non-religious I think gives me a different perspective on this, views were never drummed into me, I was never taught at a Sunday school, well this is how you talk to someone who doesn’t believe what we believe, not that I think that the right way to do things. I believe that that we go about interfaith conversions in too much of tentative way, we act as if this is something overly complex, when really it should be treated like any other conversation - two people, who think different things but otherwise have equal respect and love for each other, chatting about the things they think. God gave us the gift of speech, conversation and communication, and we should use it better!

I absolutely love talking to other people about what they believe, even some of my friends who would see themselves as having no professed faith have provided me with some of the best spiritual revelations. Like one friend who was participating in a psychic/spiritual practice, and felt as though she’d seen the face of Jesus multiple times. Religious revelation, radical spiritual thought, is not exclusive to Christianity and is not exclusive to faith communities, it’s something we all as humankind share.

While I haven’t met many people who are strong believers of other faiths, I can’t envisage that speaking with someone who has a different belief set to me should prove a particular challenge. In fact, I think it can be incredibly fruitful. If I believe that God loves everyone, even those who don't call him God, then I should look at each person I converse with just like that, as someone God loves and is a rich source of learning. I’m sure there are Muslim and Jewish religious practices we could do well to adopt, as well as things people of other faiths could learn from Christian practice. If we see each other as loved equals full of knowledge, I don't think we can go wrong.

Sam Well’s chapter on being with those of other faiths really struck me. The whole shtick of his writing is that Christianity has to do better at ‘being within our faith and ministry, especially if we wish to be effective in our incarnational practice, and his final paragraph in this chapter really struck me as calling to light exactly how I feel about what we've done wrong as Christians when engaging in multi-faith conversations, and what we can do better:

“But genuinely to be with the person of another faith means to say, “I’m doing this for me. I am a person in need. I am a person who would like to learn better how to pray, how to live a disciplined life, how to fast, how to meditate, how to be a gracious presence in the life of my neighbor. And I represent a tradition that needs to learn how to bring people of different races together, how to hold diverse opinions within one body, how to break our addiction to violence, how to use power to set people free. These are things I personally and the tradition I represent have to learn. I’m learning to be with those of other faiths because I believe that God shows me things through people like these. And what I say to them is, ‘Thank you for being messengers of God to one another and to me.”

[jackelyntam]

Research project

Jackelyn Tam

Professor Fish Burton

English 2010

30 October 2019

Research Project

Audience: Teens. Who struggle with their identity.

For each of you, “teens”, are trying to find out who you are. Who are you? What defines you? Does someone get to say who you are or is that decision made by you? Some say that the character of one person will depend on their family, their genetic background, or does it stem from the environment around the person? Every story has characters that influence us on how we think makes up a character or a personality. Let’s take the example of the Thor and Loki for example. They both have their own definite character that they play. Thor is the real son of the king and acts almost alike with their father. Loki is an adopted son who does not act or have a character of either his adopted parents. Does his character come from his biological parents or does it come from the environment at which he was raised in? This raises the question, does who you are born from define who you will become? What character do you want to play in your life story? Do you have a say of what character you want to play? Quite often your parents or the people around you may say “you fall after your father so well….” Or “you will be just like your mother/ parents…”. However, do you parents have an influence in who you will become and do they have an influence genetically or environmentally?  

           The main question is does character or one personality defined by nature or nurture? In this article by Mcleod he explains the extremes to the nature versus nurture topic. Nature by extreme is called “Nativism” (Mcleod). Nativism are people who think that all their abilities and their character are biologically inherited (Mcleod). He writes “psychological characteristics such as behavioral tendencies, personality attributes, and mental abilities are also “wired in” before we are even born.” (Mcleod). This explains how the side of Nativism would have viewed the topic of where character and attributes come from. On the other side of Nativism there is the “Empiricism” (Mcleod).  Empiricism is the extreme perspective on a person who thought on the nurture side of the scale. The Empiricist thinks like this, Mcleod writes, “Their basic assumption is that at birth the human mind is a tabula rasa (a blank slate) and that this is gradually “filled” as a result of experience” (Mcleod). Mcleod draws a perfect picture of the two sides: Nature versus Nurture. One either by the extreme naturist or the extreme empiricism. Which one of these extreme ends defines who you are? On the spectrum of nativism, you don’t get a say on who you will become. On the other hand, there is empiricism where you are born with no qualities or attributes, as Mcleod would say “a blank slate”.

In the past there have been men or the society who have tried with efforts to distort the truth of whether nature or nurture creates a person self-worth or character. These people were extreme nativist who would do anything to create judgment and fixed perspectives on a religion, or a race or, a group of a people. There are a couple of evidence from history that proves that men have a way of distorting the way we look at people, however, we will discuss only two. There are many people in life and in school that have a way to discriminate humans from what they look like and who they are born from. The first event in history is the discrimination in WWII specifically for the Jews. In world war II, the Nazi; Hitler convinced the people that the cause of Germany’s problems was because of the Jews. He was convinced that linage of the Jews was a dirty thing. He then started to discriminate and even kill the Jews for their existence based on their linage and their biological inheritance. However, little did he know that the Jews weren’t the problem but the people around them, like Hitler. In reality, the Jews had the right minds and the right intelligence to help society grow and flourish. It was Hitler and his anger and judgment that was blinding him from seeing the truth. In this website article it says “An example of this type of prejudice can be found in the memoirs of a member of the slowly declining British aristocracy, who wrote that her social class resented the Jews "not because we disliked them individually, for some of them were charming and even brilliant, but because they had brains and understood finance."” (web.mnstate.edu/shoptaug/AntiFrames.htm.). The people began to judge the Jews based on where they came from. By nature, they discriminated them and placed them in a box based on by whom they were born from. The problem is not only the fact that they were extreme nativist, but they falsely accused the linage of Jews. Another article has claimed, “throughout history, many have sought to define Jews, incorrectly, as a single and uniform category of people with fixed characteristics, which racists and anti-Semites falsely believe are rooted in biology. But the lives Jews have lived around the world and throughout history can perhaps be characterized best by their immense diversity.” (European Jewish Life before World War II).

The second evidence in history, of this biases and clouded thought process in nativism, is the racism against African American humans. This set of wrong judgment based on their color and their biological features is the same situation as the discrimination for the Jews. Except with this situation, of racism towards African American humans, they would change the history they taught in class to drill in the young minds the false accusation for the African American humans. This article by Brosnan talks about how black people were portraited in the 1800’s school education. Schools at the time were taught differently than the school we teach today. The schools back then would teach things they thought would benefit the society. They believed that white people were significantly “superior” than the African Americans. They would design textbooks and book based on this knowledge that African American are worth less than the white race. In result of writing text books like this, they would in reality, force African Americans psychologically to stay in the fields and hard labor work areas (Bronsnan).  By looking at history, we have seen so many mistakes based on non-researched and clouded judgments be based on whether someone’s worth or someone’s character stems off nature or nurture. We can’t let the biases from the world or others decided for us what we can be or what we are. What character or attribute is inherited by nature, and which is created from nurture?

Sexual identity is an example of an attribute that is created by nature. In this article, written by Loof, where he explains more about the sexual dominance and identity, he expands its most recent controversies in today’s topic of how sex is determined (Loof). Is it by nature, biologically created through hormones and chemical reactions with in the chromosomes, or is it by nurture? In today’s world people have wanted to become more like each other sex. Women want to be equal with men (loof). They want to be treated like how men are viewed as (Loof). Biologically one may be born as a female or a male human however, in today’s world there may be cases where nurture can potentially overcome what has biologically shaped gender. However, on the other hand, there are attributes that cannot be changed which are called the major genes (Fuller). Fuller writes an interesting article based on clearer way to see things on the nature side. He explains that the major genes are those that are passed down from parent to child like hair color, eye color, height etc (Fuller). He also says that diseases or viruses is also something that we cannot change by nurture, but it is passed down to parent to child (Fuller). Diseases that are passed down genetically affects the personality and attributes of a child. There are some diseases or viruses that affect the intelligence or even the ability to use the mind well enough to have their own character. This is where nature cannot be avoided. Shuttleworth agrees with Fuller, nature cannot be avoided. He writes that there are some fine lines of nature that we cannot control which are diseases that are passed down. There is another article, written by Shuttleworth, agrees with Fuller that some nature attributes that are passed down cannot be changed. However, he says that environment and heredity both have an influence as to forming character and other attributes (Shuttleworth). Shuttleworth in his own words says, “Further, in the case of intelligence and many other variables, it is essential that we have a determination of the joint contribution of hereditary and of environmental differences.” (Shuttleworth). Fuller starts to back up what Shuttleworth have been claiming on how a character is formed. There are attributes that are inherited that cannot be changed, a set of genes that are set into your DNA that cannot be changed, however, once one is being developed inside the womb, that is where nurture comes to influence your development in building character. Your parents give you a set of DNA that is unchangeable but inherited. After you are given this DNA form, you are vulnerable to have nurture to develop into your character (Fuller). Some may say you “fall after your father or your mother” however, one does not exactly inherit a 50 to 50 ratio of mother/father side. “variation in heredity are the causes of variation in traits.” (Fuller) Evolution makes organisms; humans to have variation in the DNA. Your parents are a mix of other genes that were passed down from one family tree to the next… therefore your parents will pass down a variation of genes that are not particularly what your mother or father have shown to have but are in the blood line. They may be a recessive disease or characteristics that runs in the blood line of the father or mother.

The last three sources are interesting because it connects nature and nurture together to help build character. The last three articles mainly talk about “biological clocks”. The first article is by Mcleod, the article introduces the biological clock theory. This article believes that a person’s personality and character may not reveal itself as a child but over time it will come. It is as if a biological clock is ticking its time for each individual gene to starts its chemical process. The article says “Characteristics and differences that are not observable at birth, but which emerge later in life, are regarded as the product of maturation. We all have an inner “biological clock” which switches on (or off) types of behavior in a pre-programmed way.” (Mcleod). The environment of development affects the way or when the genes are turned on…  “What does it mean that grit is “heritable”? Although an estimated 99.9% of your genes are exactly the same as mine and your neighbor’s and literally everyone else you know, a tiny fraction of human genes differ.” (Angela). Sometimes we think that character and “grit” are from nature, meaning that these qualities come from genetics, which is mostly true. From the nativist point of view, alike from what Angela said, we are all practically genetically the same (Angela). Now, here is the trick to this. Most of our genes are turned off. Angela compared our genes like a switch that is turned off (Angela). When that certain gene is turned on, let say for example a gene that causes “grit” like qualities, that person will have that ability to overcome challenges; to use this quality of grit to become a better person. Therefore, the main question we all have been wondering is, how do we turn it on? How do we turn on the gene’s that are on “off pilot”? In the point of view of the nurture side of things, the way to turn on is simply through experiences. Experiences and environment triggers chemicals inside of us to “turn on” the gene that has been “off pilot”. Circumstances that happen to a person will trigger a character that maybe unlikely, considering his/her background, to achieve. We may be born with character or attributes that may already be “turned on”. Yet, we also have the ability to change or gain more attributes and qualities into our genetic pool. Therefore, nature versus nurture: it goes both ways. We are not born with nothing and yet we are also the creators of more. Creators to change and create more of who we are (Angela).

There are stages to life that are delicate and it can affect the delicacy of the biological clock. The delicate stage of life are the developing stages of finding who you are. The last article called “Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individual” explains more about this. The stages are for example ages from in the womb to ages 25 years of age. These developing stages are so critical because it will affect a person permanently for the future than the stages of adulthood. Adolescents who face hard environment events in their lives are mostly likely to have a great impact in their life to come (Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individual). An outside impact on the body of a person in a developing stage will significantly affect the person in the long run. For example if a young person was to be treated with any kind of drug to mess with the growth of the young person, the drug will also mess up with the timing of turning on the genes that are suppose to turn on to have a normal mental and physical side of human (Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individua). These sensitive periods of growth are important to the timing of creating the character of a person. It is implied that genes and the experiences in a sensitive growth period trigger on other genes and rather say cognitive functions of the brain (Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individual). Meaning that one can gain more intellect no matter what. One is not stuck in the same situation. As do babies grow do the brain develop… suggesting that the easer to develop and change cognitive behavior is the more likely to gain more intellect… meaning that at a younger age where it’s a sensitive time where the brain absorbs everything is the best time for increasing intellect. It’s not just intellect, he says “wider range of cognitive behavior” (Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individual). The controversy whether it is nature versus nurture is deceiving because it is nature and nurture that creates one’s character. We are born with a set of genes that are not changeable however, once we are in the womb nurture plays a big part in shaping what was already given to you. Through setting off the right genes at certain, specific times, can shape a person’s personality and character to be unique and different from others.

In conclusion, nature versus nurture is a controversial topic that many want to know if to whom you are born to will affect the person you will become. There are people out there who think that nature is the only thing that creates a human being character. There are people who think that if you are born to a killer it makes you a killer. There are people who think that nurture is the only way to which one can create a life character. They think that you are born with a blank slate. Nature versus nurture is controversial, however, I believe that it is not nature versus nurture but it is nature and nurture that affect and creates a personality and character. To answer the question of what changes character, the answer is nature and nurture. This answer questions like who do you want to become? Does who you are born from change the outcome of who you will become? Your parents do play role in creating your DNA and raising you, meaning they create the environment in which you will be raised in. The environment that you create and the parents that created you will affect a big significant towards of who you will become. Your family, your friends, the influences that are around you will shape what you will take and what will trigger you inside. Even the financial opportunities and help that your family will provide will shape the person you will become (Cherry, 2019).  These do affect in who you will become however there is your own will to change yourself. It is your part to make sure you aren’t affected by the people around you that may put false accusations on you and your background. It is your job to make sure that you are in environment that will turn on the genes that are needed to have a normal or even better qualities in your life to come.  

                                                        Sources

 Mcleod, Saul. “Nature vs. Nurture in Psychology.” Nature Nurture in Psychology | Simply Psychology, https://www.simplypsychology.org/naturevsnurture.html.

 Untitled Document, http://web.mnstate.edu/shoptaug/AntiFrames.htm

  “European Jewish Life before World War II.” Facing History and Ourselves, https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-holocaust-and-human-behavior/european-jewish-life-world-war-ii.

 Brosnan, AnneMarie. “Representations of Race and Racism in the Textbooks Used in Southern Black Schools during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era, 1861-1876.” Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, vol. 52, no. 6, Jan. 2016, pp. 718–733. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1120017&site=eds-live.

  Loof, Arnold De. “Nature, Calcigender, Nurture: Sex-Dependent Differential Ca2 Homeostasis as the Undervalued Third Pillar.” Taylor & Francis, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19420889.2019.1592419.

 By: John L. Fuller research associate division of behavior studies R. B. Jackson memorial laboratory Bar harbor, Main

 Shuttleworth, F. K. “The Nature versus Nurture Problem I Definition of the Problem.” Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 26, no. 8, Nov. 1935, pp. 561–578. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1037/h0061615.

 “Nature versus Nurture.” Character Lab, 1 Mar. 2019, https://characterlab.org/thoughts-of-the-week/nature-versus-nurture/.

 “Development Holds the Key to Understanding the Interplay of Nature versus Nurture in Shaping the Individual.” Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Elsevier, 20 June 2017, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929317301196.

  Cherry, Kendra. “How Different Experiences Influence a Child's Development.” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 18 Aug. 2019, https://www.verywellmind.com/experience-and-development-2795113.

[nerdygaymormon]

Need to expand our view

Take a look at whom Jesus spent his time with, people on the margins.

Women--At the time, most women were illiterate, meaning they couldn’t study the Torah. Jesus taught them the gospel. It wasn’t normal for men to speak directly to women, Jesus did. When he healed women, he called them “daughter” or “daughter of Abraham”—indicating equal spiritual status as the “sons.” It was to women that he made his first post-resurrection appearance. In an era of gender segregation, Jesus treated men and women with equality.

Poor--Jesus showed incredible concern for the well being of the poor. His teachings humanized them and showed incredible concern for their well being. He called out those who ignore or add hardships on them. He even said, “Blessed are the poor...”

Sick--Lepers were stigmatized. They had a horribly disfiguring disease that was made worse by the loneliness of exclusion. Jesus not only heals lepers, he touches them. He also blesses the lame, crippled, and blind. All are valued. People of the time thought those individuals were cursed, Jesus taught physical ailments aren’t a punishment.

Unclean--Exposure to bodily fluids and eating unclean foods makes a person unclean. They are not pure enough to enter holy spaces or participate in holy duties and were socially ostracized because no one wanted to become unclean by associating with them. This included many who are sick, and women who are menstruating. Jesus touched the unclean. To the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, when she touched him, his response is to complement her faith. 

Outsider--This includes foreigners, people of a different race/ethnicity, and non-believers in the Jewish faith. He treated them with respect. He showed concern for them and their difficulties. When teaching about marriage, he specifically cites eunuchs, who were seen as “other.”

Jesus knocked down walls of division. He spent time with people without preconditions. People excluded from the mainstream were whom He spent time with. He scolded those who had privilege in society and set themselves up as superior while failing to help those who most need assistance and inclusion.

Want to follow Jesus? Find those who are held at arms-length and spend time with them, like LGBTQ+ people, and you’ll be transformed.

When you spend time with our trans, non-binary and genderfluid friends, you’ll learn about gender and the limitations most of us have in our understanding.

Being with same-gender couples will show how restrictive and pointless are our traditional gender roles. These couples have to collaborate and determine what arrangement is best, who it makes sense to do what.

Spend time with religious queer people. You’ll find that they hear His messages of love and affirmation. It will upend who you think of as faithful and valiant.

Queer people often are abandoned by their biological families and until recently were excluded from legal recognition of their families (which is still the case in much of the world). Many queer people create their own sort of family, choosing who to include. It’ll broaden your perspective of what is important in a family. 

People who are on the margins are central to The Plan of Salvation. We're in the Plan, but not in the way that the church currently understands things. Just as Jesus focused his time and ministry on those pushed to the margins, one day everyone will learn we aren't an afterthought.

Right now we can only participate on their terms, but one day it'll be our terms. Meaning the blessings of the gospel will be made available to all, not just people who are cishet. .

Our Heavenly Parents didn't design a plan to keep them apart from their children. We're meant to succeed and return. The Plan is large enough to include all of us. A God that can save people on the margins is a god that is big enough to save everyone. 

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

“Children … taken from the parents and placed in nurseries for three years,” Margie Laflin.

The Milwaukee Journal, Dec 29, 1981   pages 1 and 3A

New Berlin – Two months ago, Margie Laflin, 20, was selling flowers on street corners and preaching the principles of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Now she is free … and said she wanted to warn other young people not to get involved with a cult as she did. She said she planned to speak at area colleges and high schools. …

To marry, a member must be in the cult for at least three years and must be between the ages of 24 and 29. Marriages are performed by Moon, she said, and the partners are then separated and allowed to consummate the marriage only with Moon’s permission. Children of such marriages are taken from the parents and placed in nurseries for three years, she said. They are taught Korean which many believe will become a universal language, Laflin said.

___________________________

Lodi News-Sentinel, Sept 6, 1980   San Francisco (UPI)

By Lidia Wasowicz

“… I accepted an invitation to lunch at the San Francisco C.A.R.P. headquarters … At a Sutter Street flat, I was delivered into the hands of Loretta, a magnetic woman of 29, who impressed me, and the other newcomers, with her soothing voice, assuring smile and sincere warmth. …

By dinner time, Loretta had showed me pictures of two of her babies, who were staying with other Moonie children at the Unification Church nursery in upstate New York while the parents travelled spreading God’s word.”

___________________________

The Bulletin, Bend, Oregon May 27, 1984    page B4

Moonie marriages – Arranged matches typically unconventional.

Washington (UPI)

Like other sun Myung Moon inspired rituals in the Unification Church, marriage is far from conventional.

The 64-year-old church leader hand-picks a spouse for each of his followers. Then he presides over a mass ceremony, cloaked head to toe in white.

One such spectacle on July 1, 1982, paired 2,075 couples in Madison Square Garden. Three months later, Moon married 5,837 couples in Korea. A large percentage are Western-Oriental or black-white mixes. Part of the ceremony called for followers to drink wine tinged with blood from the “True Parents,” Moon and his wife.

Unificationists rely on them to choose their mates because “Reverend Moon knows better than us – he can see the future,” says Jack Harford, a member for more than eight years who is married to a Japanese woman.

Marriage and procreation are viewed as an essential for entry into the kingdom of heaven. …

Although members may request partners of a particular ethnic background, the final decision is up to Moon. As soon as the matchmaking takes place in a special ceremony, couples spend some time together to see if marriage looks feasible. Moon’s first choice is usually honored, although he has been known to match a follower several times before finding an acceptable mate.

Detractors see the process as a disaster.

“His marriages are the worst P.R. mistake Moon has ever made. That is the number one criticism I hear from people who left the church,” reports of Dr. Lowell Streiker, who works with former members and their families at his Freedom Counselling Center in Burlingame, California.

Marriage practices are precisely the reason a former church leader left.

“The marriage itself is treated like an engagement,” he remembers.  “You go through a separation after the ceremony, 40 days to five years.You can’t sleep together until Moon gives the say-so.

“That’s not why I quit, though,” he adds. “I left the church because Moon said all the families would have to separate for three years and the kids would go in a church nursery and wives would go on an evangelizing tour of college campuses. We put our eight-month old daughter in a nursery and my wife, who was pregnant, went on a bus tour.

“That made us think that Moon was not who he claimed he was. Here’s his ‘ideal family’ where the wife is one place and the kids as someone else.”

His family fled the church five years ago and requested anonymity so they can “cut it clean” with their past.

Some church critics also find Moon’s matchmaking techniques “shocking,” as a Washington, D.C., mother of a member puts it. Revealing her name would “cause problems for my son,” she said.

“He married a Japanese girl, at Madison Square Garden, who he had never met until a week or two before the wedding,” she said. They work apart now; I think he’s maybe seen her once or twice a year. I’m numb at this point.”

Another East Coast mother is equally distraught.

“My daughter was sent to Korea to marry a man she had never seen before,” she says of the ceremony that took place in the fall of 1982. “She said she was crying so hard during the ceremony, she didn’t even know what nationality he was.” As it turned out, he was a Jewish New Yorker.

When asked if her daughter loves the man, the mother says: “She says if you love God more than you love yourself and if your partner loves God more than he loves himself, you should be able to live happily ever after with anybody…”

Followers, however see it all differently. Argues Bento Leal, a member for 10 years: “We are not his slaves. Reverend Moon is just more spiritually advanced than most. His marriages are a very rich experience.”

___________________________

Linda Feher has written on this topic:

Don’t forget that it wasn’t only demanded of earlier members. I know so many “sisters” who joined the UC and were told they had to “sacrifice” their “blessed” children in order to “save” the “Cain” children of the world. So they abandoned their children to fundraise and witness for Moon. (The purpose of witnessing was to bring in more fundraisers.)

Also, when the marching orders came for all sisters all over the world to leave their blessed children to join IOWC (International One World Crusade) teams and travel all over the USA, I witnessed much suffering and tears.

When I asked some who I saw suffering and crying the most why they didn’t just stay home with their children I was told, that they were told, “If you don’t sacrifice your blesses children Satan will attack them”. To me that is spiritual terrorism. They left their children and joined mobile IOWC teams because they were threatened with harm to their children. It makes my blood boil! …

Moon convinced the leaders that Satan will attack us if we didn’t follow his every whim, they believed him and then learned from Moon to use that same form of spiritual terrorism to control our every thought, feeling and action.

One sister on my IOWC team left to visit her husband to start their family. During the 3 day ceremony she got pregnant. She was told that she was not supposed to get pregnant during her 3 day ceremony. That it was “bad luck” and that her child would be invaded by Satan. I watched her cry day in and day out on the IOWC team because she was made to fear for her unborn child’s life. That kind of teaching/belief is evil and sickening.

Living on the IOWC team was like living at a funeral 24/7 because so many sisters were hurting over the fact that they had left their children for what was an UNSPECIFIED time period. We had to move to a new city every 21 days. never knowing how many years we would have to serve on IOWC teams. Even that fact, never knowing how long we’d have to be on IOWC traveling teams was a form of spiritual terrorism. Would it be months, years? No one knew and so we were always kept in an emotionally unstable frame of mind. …

How many couples and how many children have suffered because Moon terrified them into abandoning their families in order to serve him and his insatiable appetite for power and wealth?

___________________________

Why Love Matters – book by Sue Gerhardt

Infants abandoned by UC parents in the US. Two die at Jacob House.

UC babies dying and UC members starving

Michael Warder’s reasons for leaving. As a top UC leader in the US in the 1970s he reported directly to Moon.

Moon instructed: “Whenever the Blessed couples have children, as soon as the child become 100 days old, they will put him in the nursery school.”

[militant-holy-knight]

Why the Palestinian Cause is So Hard to Support

I'd usually stay clear off from getting involved in the debate regarding Israel and Palestine because you are guaranteed to offend all sides of the political spectrum if you stand with either. You get labelled a fascist by liberals and "pro-kike" by the far-right if you say anything positive about Israel, or being accused of supporting terrorism if you stand with Palestine. I know that many of my Christian brothers and sisters will easily support Israel because its the only place in the Middle-East where Christians are safe and protected. It's a very convincing argument... One that Palestine cannot make for itself unfortunately in effort to gain the hearts and minds of the people. Let me explain why.

Palestinian nationalism is often erroneously associated with Islamism due to the massive support and sympathy Palestinians receive from the Muslim world because several holiest sites in Islam - the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Dome of the Rock - are within Jewish control and they can’t abide that. Also because Arab = Muslim in the minds of many people in the West, nevermind that not all Palestinians are Muslims. Here is a little known fact: the Munich terrorist attacks were carried out by a group of Palestinian Christians. The operation was titled “Iqrit and Biram”, named after two Christian settlements seized by Israeli Defense Forces and their terrorist leader used the codename Isa (Jesus in Arabic) was a Christian born from a Jewish mother and a Christian father. Back during the cold war, Palestinians were mostly a mostly secular movement in part because they were backed by the Soviet Union and they believed that regardless of your faith - whether Christian or Muslim - you were fighting to liberate yourself from Israeli oppression.

However, this changed in the 80s with the foundation of Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Nationalism had been viewed as an ungodly ideology by early Islamic thinkers, substituting "the nation" for God as an object of worship and reverence. The struggle for Palestine was viewed exclusively through a religious prism, as a struggle to retrieve Muslim land and the holy places of Jerusalem. While 90% of Palestinians are Sunnis, there has been a conflict between secularism and adherence to Islam. In the case of Hamas, Palestinian nationalism has almost completely fused with the ideologically pan-Islamic sentiments originally held by the Islamists.

The Islamic bitching about the Palestinians suffering oppression under the Israeli occupation doesn't convince me because for every Palestinian there are ten more Copts and Assyrians that do not enjoy equal rights. Muslim land is under occupation? The holy Christian sites of Alexandria and Constantinople are in the hands of the Muslims for centuries now. You could argue Antioch is also under Islamic occupation since Lebanon is now a Shia majority though this is only a recent development and Lebanon used to be the only Christian majority country in the Middle-East, and to be technical, the President of Lebanon is always a Maronite Catholic.

The occupation of Constantinople is particularly lamentable.  Itself It wouldn't be so bad if Turkey was a pluralistic society that respected the rights of other peoples, but its sham of secularism (which is pretty transparent to anyone observing current events) showed they never actually committed themselves to it even after abolishing the Ottoman caliphate. Consider the Christian Holocaust they have committed in the early 20th Century against the Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians (which they still deny it while at the same time boasting about it in private) and that now Turkey has less of half a percent of Christians. By contrast, Iraq under Saddam Hussein had at least a million Christians though this number has obviously went down because of its civil war. Let me ask you: what kind of secular society is this where the brutal dictatorship that is guilty of genocide actually treats its Christian minority better in comparison? And there are people that still use Turkey as the model of democracy for Muslim countries. Lets not pretend its the USA is the same way in regards to Islam demographics: there was a sizable Christian presence in Turkey before they discovered too late the appeal of pan-Islamism and decided their gavour subjects needed to die. 

The reality is that Turks don’t pray in the Hagia Sophia because mosques are lacking in Constantinople, they do it to rub it in the faces of the Greeks - and by extension - all of Christendom. Its a symbol of Islam prevailing over Christianity never mind that we were ahead of the curve, technologically and scientifically.

The reality is that Islamists can’t take infidels being in control of something they can’t have. Just like how Osama bin Laden denounced Sudan and Indonesia for granting independence to the Roman Catholic countries of South Sudan and East Timor - both of whom considered insignificant by the world community - because he believe any sort of land that was owned by the ummah should never be given to infidels. This is why these dipshits lay claim to Spain and Greece as theirs by right.

The reality is that whether you like it or not, Muslims are poised and eager to be biggest aggressor against Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu is quoted as saying  “If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more ‎violence. If the Jews put ‎down their weapons ‎today, there would be no ‎more Israel”. I certainly don’t like the man and you certainly don’t have to, but to say he is incorrect would be a bold-faced lie. Even back in the day when the State of Israel was established, the General Secretary Abdul Rahman Azzam of the Arab League has been quoted as saying this genocidal threat:

"I personally wish that the Jews do not drive us to this war, as this will be a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Tartar massacre or the Crusader wars. I believe that the number of volunteers from outside Palestine will be larger than Palestine's Arab population, for I know that volunteers will be arriving to us from [as far as] India, Afghanistan, and China to win the honor of martyrdom for the sake of Palestine … You might be surprised to learn that hundreds of Englishmen expressed their wish to volunteer in the Arab armies to fight the Jews.

"This war will be distinguished by three serious matters. First—faith: as each fighter deems his death on behalf of Palestine as the shortest road to paradise; second, [the war] will be an opportunity for vast plunder. Third, it will be impossible to contain the zealous volunteers arriving from all corners of the world to avenge the martyrdom of the Palestine Arabs, and viewing the war as dignifying every Arab and every Muslim throughout the world …

"The Arab is superior to the Jew in that he accepts defeat with a smile: Should the Jews defeat us in the first battle, we will defeat them in the second or the third battle … or the final one… whereas one defeat will shatter the Jew's morale! Most desert Arabians take pleasure in fighting. I recall being tasked with mediating a truce in a desert war (in which I participated) that lasted for nine months…While en route to sign the truce, I was approached by some of my comrades in arms who told me: 'Shame on you! You are a man of the people, so how could you wish to end the war … How can we live without war?' This is because war gives the Bedouin a sense of happiness, bliss, and security that peace does not provide! …

"I warned the Jewish leaders I met in London to desist from their policy, telling them that the Arab was the mightiest of soldiers and the day he draws his weapon, he will not lay it down until firing the last bullet in the battle, and we will fire the last shot …"

"I foresee the consequences of this bloody war. I see before me its horrible battles. I can picture its dead, injured, and victims … But my conscience is clear … For we are not attacking but defending ourselves, and we are not aggressors but defenders against an aggression! …"

Granted the authenticity of this quote has been questioned and many have accused it of being taken off context. But that is largely irrelevant because the discourse about Jews in the Muslim world would have been considered unacceptable by Western standards. Children over there are indoctrinated to be intolerant and hateful, the exact opposite of what us Westerners are taught. Rather than enjoying childhood, their kids are taught the glories of martyrdom and to die in the name of defeating Israel.

And that lead us to Hamas, a political party that was democratically voted into power and it’s explicit in wanting to exterminate all Jews - not just the ones in Israel though, but in the entire world. In case you don’t believe me, just read their Covenant, which is a official political document they established.

Article 7 mentions a prophecy attributed to Muhammed. 

The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree (evidently a certain kind of tree), would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.

Article 22 states that the French revolution, the Russian revolution, colonialism and both world wars were created by the Zionists or forces supportive of Zionism:

You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.

Article 32 of the Covenant refers to an antisemitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.

I know that not all Palestinians support Hamas since the PLO doesn’t recognize them, but enough Palestinians voted to get them into power - they are not a fringe movement. Following the 2007 coup, the Gaza Strip had exhibited the characteristics of Talibanization, a process whereby the Hamas government had imposed strict rules on women, discouraged activities commonly associated with Western or Christian culture, oppressed non-Muslim minorities, imposed sharia law, and deployed religious police to enforce these laws. While their PR wing denied efforts of Islamicizing the Gaza Strip, they have also added they don’t oppose it and believe in “persuasion”. One woman complained that women were not free to speak their minds or travel alone, and added:

"Hamas want to force themselves onto the people. They want the people to submit to them, this is their cover. They destroyed the reputation of Islam, by saying we're doing this because it is religion. This is how they won the elections."

Despite this, Hamas is somewhat aware of the weight of their words considering they have completely different rhetorics differing in the audience. When talking to an Arab crowd, they are explicitly anti-Semitic as one deputy member said on the Al-Aqsa TV:

If the enemy sets foot on a single square inch of Islamic land, Jihad becomes an individual duty, incumbent on every Muslim, male or female. A woman may set out [on Jihad] without her husband's permission, and a servant without his master's permission. Why? In order to annihilate those Jews. ... O Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters. O Allah, destroy the Americans and their supporters. O Allah, count them one by one, and kill them all, without leaving a single one

When talking towards the international audience, they slightly alter their tune to being simply anti-Zionist when talking to CBS:

We are not fanatics. We are not fundamentalists. We are not actually fighting the Jews because they are Jews per se. We do not fight any other races. We fight the occupiers.

What Hamas may not realize it is that their adherence to fundamentalism and marginalization of Palestinian Christians, who would have once fought on their side are now on the verge of extinction, plays directly into the hands of Israel’s PR. I am sure you have already heard this being said many times that Israel is the safest place for Christians in the Middle-East - a rather dubious claim given only two percent constitutes the Christian population in contrast to Lebanon’s 40%.

Of course this is a shrewd plan that Israeli politicians play to gain the support of the United States and Christendom at large, including the current President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, a Roman Catholic like yours truly. This helps hide the more uncomfortable, darker reality around Israel: that far-right Jewish gangs regularly vandalize churches with price tag attacks, Orthodox Jews regularly spit on Christians when they come across in the streets or how some of them might have sympathies for extremists like the followers of Meir Kahane. I’ve also have personal criticism of Israel tolerating Islamist parties in the Knesset which is really galling considering that the MB is banned in certain Arab countries like their long arch-enemy Egypt (despite what their political enemies in the Islamic world would like to pretend, Zionism isn’t necessarily anti-Islam). Of course none of this can be even comparable to what Christians are facing in the Islamic world itself.

"Christians, natives of Arab countries, are escaping their countries of origin. This is a common statement nowadays everywhere and it is correct one hundred percent. Statistics show that a large number of them have emigrated to safer countries for them and for their children, like the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe. The reason is the harassment to which they are subjected to by government agencies on the one hand and extremist groups on the other hand in countries they have inhabited for thousands of years…

"The Christians have lived in the territory currently referred to as [the Arab countries] for centuries alongside other religious groups, and particularly with Muslims who shared with them the afflictions of life. But the Christians have lost their partners for many reasons, including religious extremism among some Muslims, the demographic increases out of religious reasons, and the acts of discrimination, coercion, and individual and collective expulsion of Christians, and the pressures placed upon them even when they were serving their countries. There are many examples of that in Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Lebanon, Egypt, and other countries.

"Approximately 4 million Lebanese Christians have emigrated from their country as a result of the pressures placed upon them by others. About half a million Iraqi Christians have left their country for the same reasons… The situation gets worse today because of the discrimination by salafi [Islamic fundamentalist] extremists. In Palestine, the Christians are becoming almost extinct as a result of the control of extremist Muslims on the Palestinian issue and the marginalization of the role of the Christians, apart from the negative impact of the Intifada, which is led by Islamist organizations, on the Christians of Palestine. With regard to Christians in Egypt, the Copts, what happened and is happening to them equally on the part of the state and the Islamists will suffice to fill pages of books and newspapers to explain the coercion, discrimination and persecution. What is happening in Algeria, Mauritania, Somalia, and others is too long to explain.

"This situation is also reflected in non-Arab [Muslim] countries. In Islamic countries like Pakistan, Indonesia and Nigeria, Christians suffer from persecution. In Pakistan, Islamist [spiritual leaders] have issued a fatwa [religious opinion] permitting the killing of two Christians for every Muslim killed by the American attacks in Afghanistan, as though the Americans represent Christianity in the world. In other countries they [Christians] live in fear, under the shadow of threat, and face a growing cycle of assaults whenever the United States and its allies carry out a military operation against any country.

"Christians are afraid of what might happen to them in these countries. The situation is quite critical and requires urgent attention. It is difficult for us to imagine any other time in which the Christians have felt a greater danger than the danger they feel today in these countries…"

Keep in mind, this report I shared was from 2004. Things surely must have gotten worse like in the wake of the Arab Spring. But this brings me back to my original point... While our brothers in Christ have their priests killed, their churches bombed, their women raped and their people forced to flee, don’t expect me to take the Palestinian cause seriously, if even their own Christians are being persecuted. If Muslims argued that the Palestinians have lived in this patch of land that is now occupied by the Jews, remember the Copts, Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks have lived in these lands long before Muslims arrived, but that is just my Christian perspective. 

As a long Islamist saying goes “before Sunday, comes Saturday”. 

[squiddoodle]

@lezzyharpy.....you blocked me but i’m going to reply cause your apprently 26..... And I can’t not address this cause fuck my brain.

-good fucking g-d how the fuck do you take “you cant claime to defend us while simultaneously mocking our beliefs” as a challenge. how are you misreading shit this badly - um well that’s not all of what you said. Like i’ve never heard an atheist say religious beliefs are children’s stories but I have heard them say they are fiction, comforting stories, fairytales/ myths... but anyone who thinks all religous stories are kiddish....really lets their kids read some violent stuff. And you claim believing that makes us antisemitic. Your saying not agreeing with you and thinking what your doing is a waste of time so personally want none of it , and not just you but all religion but “you do you” is insulting and mocking you!? You’re claiming that is being antisemic. There’s a huge diffrance between “ fine soccer a boring, pointless waste of my time and I have no interest in it and this is why but I can see you enjoy it and get fafillment out of it so go ahead i’ll cheer for you and be happy for you” vs “I hate everyone who plays soccer I think their the devil and we should ban soccer and beat up soccer fans. I think soccer is a illness. I think they are disgusting and not like us/ i’m going to sit back and let other people say and do that to soccer and soccer fans.” Also your acting like we think we’re better than you because we don’t belive in it.....largely....no... we are just AWARE we have unprovable things we like to belive that make us feel better and we know we could be wrong about everything we think we know, we are open to being proven wrong on facts and scientific proof would prove us wrong ..... that is litrally the soul diffrances. I don’t judge all my religious friends just one ones who think they are better than everyone else and are “at war” with everyone not as ““Enlighten as them” because of that religion. Your mocking atheist for acting like “Ohwiseones” and yet when I was religious and not the most mockly self righteous people I’ve known have all been religious. You mock us for acting like the  “o wise one Knowing better” and yet that is the bases of every damn religion! “you are the chosen none dilousional ones god has taught better than silly unbelieving fools” ....and you are litrally talking to me like your all knowing and i’m dumb filth....

( for the record what was acturlly said v)

- if we ask that you not mock our beliefs that is not….. even remotely the same thing as saying you must have the same beliefs as us-

  right it shouldn’t be but your making out it is. because apprently unless we act like you know better than us or likely that myth is equal to fact or agree that spending endless hour of your time and most your thought process worshipping a god that no one can prove exist and belive that this one specific book is full of wisdom truth and sense and agree that his rules are good and he is good you know just cause “he” says so in his book , unless we agree that that sounds like a good use of anyone’s time, and is the healthiest way to deal with life and nothing bad ever comes from it and none of it is asking you to belive some really bizarre unproven things and think that there couldn’t possibly be another way, or we’re just not honest about it and never express our view point ever about anything religious, then we’re antisemites ......that’s how the logic your putting here comes across.

-how are you this fucking dense -   ... litrally insulting me...  but ok: Or maybe apprently you don’t know what you’re implying?

are you really gonna ask how you were insulting while you compared us to dogs? - 

.......ok first off you know that’s a well known saying/metaphor right? If I said “you’re look a gift horse in the mouth” you haven’t litrally done that ether and your gift is not litrally a horse or being compared to one. Second I “compared” us both to dogs...and i’m not a Jew....I was also a dog in that situation!  ....or at least that’s how I was picturing it: one dog barking up the tree the other laying in the grass chilling watching out....a metaphor is not me acturlly saying we are dogs🤦‍♀️.....do you not understand sayings? ok without the saying, what I was saying is: from where I am stood I think your using a lot of time on effort on somthing that’s not real and to me it seems a bit silly but i respect that it makes sense to you, so long as no one really gets hurt, I’m not going to judge you or stop you, i’m just going to mind my own business but be ready to go after anyone who does judge you or try to stop you......so yeah that really wasn’t a insult but apprently you want to stretch for them so...

 - and yea i brought up jews specifically cuz im jewish you dipshit, and as for your “oh woe is me how could i have possibly known”…

your reading comprehension is fucking pathetic- 

ok first off  again the only one throwing insults here is you, the only one calling an actual person names is again you. The only one not trying to understand the other persons point of view or why they said somthing is you. Second you listed “Jews, Muslims and minority faiths” and then use “our”..... grammatically that means yeah you’re likely at least one of those, but it doesn’t specify which. Also I wasn’t ...“woe is me”...ing... i really don’t know where you got that level of drama and victim playing from. I just didn’t want to assume, I had figured you probally where Jew but you could just be a Muslim who cared more about Jews them themselves, or another majority faith, 🤷‍♀️ Hell you could even be a troll pretending to be a Jew, I litrally don’t know you  so I have no idea who you really are and have to take your word on stuff just like you do me. And you didn’t fully clarify so I didn’t just assume. And all i’m saying is funny how quickly your dropped your “defence” of Muslims and other faiths and how your not answering my questions about how you view other faiths and beliefs.

-take a fucking step back, reread the original post, and consider what it is about a jew asking that people not mock our beliefs while claiming to support us that made you feel so fucking targeted, and while youre at it, question why you think a call to not mock our beliefs is a call that everyone must hold our beliefs. if you wanna talk about projection youve got some serious fucking introspection to do first- 

here’s the thing, it wasn’t that part, alone, as you are declaring it now.  Cause by the rest of what you said i’m pretty sure your not talking about things like insulting charactures and stereotyping of Jews right? Your not talking about someone crashing a religous ceremony or mocking it, or laughing at /ripping off your religious clothing ,or Phyically trashing your book ,or visiting your temple and violating the rules or yelling their own views and how stupid everything is during the sermon, or telling you Jews are demons (or somthing not human and insulting) ,or Acturlly picking on you for being a Jew or any stuff like that? Cause yeah ok those are mocking and insulting, gross and deeply disrespectful,. That would be a horrific way to treat you and I’m not defending any of that, I would want to punch anyone who did those or alike to you. Heck I would even defend you if someone outwardly called you dumb just for believing in the possibly of a god because who fucking knows, nothing in life is 100% certain other than we here and we’ll die.

 But that’s not on the lines of the exarmples you have, which to me seem very dramatised and exsadrated anyway. But by the rest of what you said i’m betting you’re talking about people saying stuff like “ i’m not gonna lie I think it’s kind of daft that you think snakes could litrally talk but if that’s what you want to do ok” or “ok I think it’s kind of silly to waste your life trying to please someone you don’t even really know is there but it’s your life” and “ you know there’s a good chance you only belive what you do cause you where brought up to” ...and those aren’t mocking you they’re disagreeing with you and expressing a diffrent point of view. They might be hard to hear but that doesn’t make them insults, it doesn’t mean that person thinks less of you! over all i, and i’m pretty sure most on the left, would never really mock you only express our own point of view of things, we might mock and insult you back if you first mock us or try to convert us and won’t take our no and reasoning for an answer, cause your being really fucking rude then. But if you say your going to the temple most of us we’ll say” ok have a nice time” and mean it!  if you say you need to pray about somthing we’ll say “ok cool go ahead” and mean it!( though some might Be uncomfortable depending on context Ei if your just going to pray away cancer and not get treated),  if you ask us if you can pray for us or somthing most of us will be cool with that but we’ll be honest about how we view religion too and we’re not going to agree that everything in your religion is wise, super healthy and sensible, we not going to lie and tell you we think any of it is true . We don’t think religions are true, at best to us it is a heavily myth based self written history you want to belive in, but if it brings you a sense of fulfilment then we won’t judge you we’ll support your right to belive and practise that because we all have our things like that; so please tell me what is insulting, mocking and wrong with that?! Religous people often belive i’m ether a demon tricked fool or some rebelling monster who wants to sin and deny god so I can wallow in my evilness.....now those are pretty insulting, but when religous people just think what I belive is dumb and wrong 🤷‍♀️ Cool we deeply disagree but ok. It’s not insulting, sure I might agrue why I have that view ,but they just don’t agree on my view of things. and if you find that insulting or mocking then logically you just have a problem with anyone who doesn’t 100% agree with you 

-but you can do that introspection on your own, im not in the mood to continuously coddle you assholes while you stumble fecklessly through learning basic decency, so learn that shit behind a block- again the only one throwing insults or being “undecent” to anyone is you. The only one belittling here is you. And blocking helps nothing but ok i’m still going to write this reply cause your sense of logic bugs the crap out of me. Have fun thinking anyone who dosen’t think religion is truthful and pumped with wisdom is antisemic .....I really hope you get my point some day though cause thinking that way can’t feel good. i have litrally 0 hate or hosititly towards you,or any Jews for being active Jews, or your faith or your right to practise it in any land, so on, and that goes for all religions. but you can keep being mad at me cause you think people who think organised religions are largely a scam,or the old books are more myth than fact,  hates you or thinks less of you and has a problem with you or your faith existing .....really don’t but 🤷‍♀️ i’ll still help you stand for your rights against those who acturlly do hate you and are hostile towards you and your right to faith. 

[freebiblestudies]

Christ’s Method of Evangelism Lesson 02 - The Mission

What exactly was Christ’s method of evangelism?  One of the best ways to understand Christ’s method of evangelism is to analyze a few case studies.

Let’s turn to John 4:1-9 and read together.

Jesus speaking with a Samaritan woman was remarkable on many levels.  At that time, the Jews were prejudiced against the Samaritans.  The Jews even considered anyone who directly interacted with the Samaritans to be unclean (2 Kings 17:24; Acts 10:28).

Furthermore, according to Jewish tradition, a rabbi would not speak to a woman in public, even if she was his wife.

The Samaritan woman may have been a social outcast.  Normally, in those days women would go to draw water from a well in the morning, when the weather was cooler.  The Samaritan woman was drawing water at noon, when the sun was at its hottest. She may have come at that time because no one else would come to draw water from the well.  She wouldn’t have to interact with anyone.

Jesus broke all cultural and social conventions by speaking with the Samaritan woman.  Most importantly, He affirmed her dignity and personhood. Jesus reached out to her even though she was a woman, a Samaritan, and quite possibly a person of ill repute.

Let’s turn to John 4:10-26 and read together.

Note that Jesus did not allow Himself to get sidetracked into a theological debate with the Samaritan woman.  Also note that Jesus did not attack her about her shortcomings and sins.  He kept His focus on the Gospel message.  Jesus was interested in her salvation.

Let’s turn to John 4:27-37 and read together.

The disciples may have been perturbed by Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman. They must have had at least one of the following thoughts in their minds: Why is Jesus talking to a Samaritan?  Why is Jesus talking to a woman?  Doesn’t He know she surely must be a sinner?

Jesus did not try to explain or justify His interaction with the Samaritan woman.  Instead, Jesus taught the disciples a quick lesson on the importance of evangelism.  He tried to get them to see that even the Samaritans deserved a chance to hear the Gospel message.

Let’s turn to John 4:39-42.

The Samaritan woman was so impressed with Jesus that she went into the city to tell everyone about Him. The people were so intrigued by her testimony that they came out to see Jesus.  Many Samaritans came to believe in Jesus as a result.

There are several lessons we can learn from this story.  We should not be afraid to reach out to people of different cultures, ethnicities, genders, or religious beliefs.  Jesus was as comfortable speaking with the Samaritan woman as He was speaking with Nicodemus, a respected Jewish leader (John 3:1-18).

Secondly, we must respect the people we reach out to.  Jesus never looked down upon the Samaritan woman.  He treated her as an equal.

Thirdly, we need to remember our mission is to win souls to Christ, not to win debates.  You may intellectually browbeat someone into submission, but you may end up shutting down their receptivity to the Gospel message as a result.  

Finally, we need to spend time with the people we reach out to.  Jesus did not leave immediately after meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well.

Friend, are you willing to follow Christ’s method of evangelism?

[asmakahf]

Someone Loves You, and You are Not Aware of it yet!

Suppose there's a 3 year course in Language.

First Year they teach alphabets

Second year they teach Grammar.

Third year they teach how to make proper sentences.

If Third year students could make sentences of the same language Doesn't it prove they were very much part of the whole curriculum?

This example means Christians, jews, Muslims are consecutive religions, one completes the other. Each is incomplete without other.

Christians, Jews and Muslims are not three different religions.

They are religions of different centuries.

When messengers of each religion came they were denied and bothered by the then enemies of faith.

These enemies of faith had similar reasons for rejecting the message, that was some worldly/personal loss.

But the moment messengers left the world almost all people follow the religion, because then finally they come to now that messengers dint have any personal ambition and He wished well for people.

The denial of Prophet Mohammed s.a.w by jews and Christians of that time and this time is illogical.

Have seen lot of scholars of these religions go deep in history, terminology of ancient languages, minutes details about what might have happened

You dont need to be history expert for using common sense.

Be it Prophet Moses (Peace be Upon Him)

Or Prophet Jesus (Peace be Upon Him)

Or Prophet Jonas (Peace be Upon Him)

They all gave message about God and people or tyrants bothered them, rejected them and subjected them to pain, difficulties and suffering.

They had few followers for long time, their popularity reached far, generation of thier time discussed them and amazed by them.

They gave messages which was easily accepted by some, they had small group of loyal people with them.

Each Prophet (Peace be Upon Him) showed a miracle in something that was valued by people of that time.

Some Prophets showed miracles which was beyond Any magic of the world,

Some cured people, some brought food from sky, etc.

This history forms a pattern, this pattern is made obvious by Divine power.

Why? So that corrupt people who obviously manipulate truth, can never hide what was known through the ages.

Why truth is hidden?

It's hidden because it harms worldly desires or profit of some people.

Moses (Peace be Upon Him) was rejected because his message that God is one, unseen, harmed Pharaoh who made people fear him by saying that he is God .

Similarly messages of Prophets ( (Peace be Upon them) were rejected by people who thought if they accepted it then they would lose something.

Some thought they would lose wealth, some thought they will have to leave adultery, interest and some religious people thought they would lose position of being highly respected.

When THIS pattern is UNIQUE to PROPHETS.

How can any sane person refuse to believe in Prophet Mohammed (Peace be Upon Him) when HE SUFFERED THE SAME THINGS, SHOWED MIRACLES, PEOPLE AROUND HIM COULD SWEAR HE NEVER LIES?

Accepting Prophet Mohammed s.a.w was difficult for Idol worshippers, but it was easy for jews and Christians as they had scriptures, they knew and learned how people treated Prophets in the past. They had an idea what sort of atmosphere is created when a Prophet starts sharing divine message. It should have been doubts free and firm belief in Prophet Mohammed (Peace be Upon Him) when he was sharing stories of other prophets, even though he couldn't read or write nor was he from Christians or Jewish family to have heard detailed account of prophets.

His initial story was so similar to Prophet Abraham (Peace be Upon Him).

I Think the best example of people who reject Him (Peace be Upon Him) is like a group who was told there will come to them a guest, and they have to treat that guest well for he is important official. If they treat him well their issues will be solved.

All of them waited eagerly to welcome him, then a black man entered.

They pushed him aside saying an important person is expected, move away!

A few of wise people understood that this is the much awaited person, treated him well and took him with them. And this group kept waiting and waiting and they taught thier generations to wait for him!

So this is rejection of truth due to lack of humility and arrogance.

Its arrogance because they decided and were adamant about what the person of high importance should look like!

It was height of ignorance and stubborn mindset that stopped them from getting benefits of truth.

When Prophet Mohammed (Peace be Upon Him) declared truth, fulfilled every criteria of being in touch with Divine power yet some jews and Christians rejected the message because it was thier obstinance that The last messenger should be from thier group.

They had really shallow fears, the priests thought they would stop getting money from worshippers, will have a lower position now and will have to change their entire way of conducting themselves and upset the rich and powerful people of that area. Some also had fears whether they will be abandoning their beloved religion,

To ALL these QUESTIONS They got answer through Divine message communicated by Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him),

These were answers to clear not just doubts but burst the lies and propaganda.

For example- It was said

Those who traded truth with lies for money will have painful torment in hereafter.

There will be double reward for those Christians and Jews who accept Islam because they believed in what was revealed before and after.

Those who misguide people will abandon them on the day of judgment and they will say to their followers why did you follow us, My lord Punish them and leave me.

Is idol worshipping or worshipping of things and humans different from these religions, and has no connection with these religions?

Just like Islam connects Christianity and Judaism ,it Equally connects all forms of worshipping.

The first ever Prophet who faced disobedience of people, it was because of Idol worshipping. It was Prophet Noah (Peace be Upon Him) whose story of making arc is known by all.

The pattern is same. Nobody can claim tomorrow on the day judgement that they dint get information about Prophet or religion or One GOD.

We have documented proves,authentically carried through generations about religions and Prophets.

If there be any doubt you can see human behaviour, and pattern there won't be any doubt.

As per records , idol worshipping started when people lost a great Person they respected and loved.

First They thought they should make a statue which resembles to him so that they keep remembering him and it will help them in guidance.

Then they started visiting that statue, then touching it one thing after another, soon they were wiping thier head with mud of that statue.

You ask even today Why idol worshippers worship stone or things

They will say its a matter of faith, it gives them strength and they feel the presence of God when that statue is around. And mostly they get upset and angry like people got Angry with Abraham (Peace be Upon Him) saying things like how dare you say anything about Our Gods, you are sinner, you will be dead, but what they couldn't answer was a simple question when a thing needs you to carry it, when u ask it doesn't talk, when you break It doesn't even protect itself, when you have more faculties then it has, How CAN THAT BE GOD, WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE EVERYWHERE, ALL HEARING,ALL POWERFUL?

Even today we know one thing, when person who doesn't have answer and doesn't want to be changed for good starts fighting in the name of religion but can't face the simple logics for the unnecessary fear of losing out on his religion.

Hence Prophet Noah((Peace be Upon Him), other prophets, Prophet Abraham all spread the message of God, that God is Unseen, HE is one, He has Power Over everything and HE doesn't need to take shape or form for you to worship HIM.

Never worship something thats created or made by humans , nor should you worship things that are created by LORD, sun moon, sky, fire, earth,other humans.

I request you to know about Prophet Mohammed (Peace be Upon Him) so that you experience the beauty of worshipping Lord in ways He (Peace be Upon Him) Taught us.

Islam Makes you self dependent, good human and changes perception of life in such a way that you won't run after shallow things.

Once you get to know Islam you will know its way of life. IF you have read it till here, am sure You are person of intelligence and emotions. DO TRY TO KNOW ABOUT ISLAM. TAKE YOUR TIME, BUT KNOW IT FROM CONVERTS OR MUSLIMS personally.

Ever since i came to know the reality of media and entertainment industry, it bothers me how people who would have known truth easily are Being misled and kept away from something so precious that can heal them, help them and improve their life in ways they can't imagine.

[nataliesnews]

Subject: Fwd: The relevant Holocaust lesson for each individual   11.4.2021

Subject: Fwd: The relevant Holocaust lesson for each individual

To:

       The text is also in the appendix for the convenience of reading ------ the relevant Holocaust lesson for the individual citizen

Olek Netzer

This year I took advantage of my privileged status as a Holocaust survivor and appeared in this role in "Memory in the Living Room" to convey the lessons of the Holocaust to those gathered. I decided to settle for the relevant Holocaust lessons for each individual, so as not to provoke too much commotion.

 The lesson of the Holocaust relevant to the country, its government and its rulers, is clear and agreed on everything: to be strong in the face of enemies so that it does not happen to us again. This lesson is applied in the loyalty of the government, the army, the security services, the right and the left, education and culture in the country. The children of Israel visiting Auschwitz wear the state flag on their backs - the armor that protects us and the essence of the lesson that is taught and applied in practice.

 For you, every citizen and every individual, the lesson of living in a strong Jewish state is not enough. The fact that Zionism has removed us from the place of sacrifice in history does not make us immune from the danger that is approaching the place of the perpetrators of the Holocaust, to tyranny, aggression, national-racial superiority and dehumanization of those who are not ours. All the more so, the fact that you or you are citizens of a strong and controlling state does not make you immune from the possibility that you will be like a mass ruin of the German people, who closed their eyes or "did not know" because they did not want to know how behind fences and walls they suppressed and abused Jews and millions of other gypsies, people of all nations and Germans, homosexuals and everyone who opposed them.

 The lesson of the Holocaust requires each and every one of you to think seriously about not being like the ones who caused or made it possible for the Holocaust. Especially, if you are big patriots and supporters of the governmental power establishment - because then you are in a particularly high risk group.

 The first lesson I would like you to adopt is humanity. The Nazis exterminated six million Jews, for whom they were not human beings. The truth is that they destroyed six million people, each one unique, each different, each equal to me and every other person in the world in his right to life, liberty, and just treatment. A Holocaust is possible only if one sins against the sin of dehumanization while humanity is the ultimate vaccine against it. Now, try to apply this lesson to yourself and your opinions in Israel 2021: Every Arab is a person, everyone is unique, everyone is different, everyone is equal to us in his right to life, freedom, and fair treatment. The lesson of the Holocaust requires acknowledging this and you will draw your own conclusions.

The most important lesson I would want you to adopt belongs to our humanity. You are human beings, not angels and not higher beings or higher race. Even as Jews who fight the Israeli wars in practice or in spirit - you are only human beings who can make mistakes and sin. "To develop a lying sin" - this also includes our development. Even when we wear military uniforms or sit in government, we as human beings may err and sin. "And you were very much saved for your souls" ... from sins and crimes in relation to our enemies. "

 This lesson is so burning that fanatics, zealots of their people or religion, including those like the Nazis - fascists and terrorists of all kinds - are also human beings ... normal human beings with normal opinions in terms of the society in which they live and with which they identify. As normal human beings, you would not be able to hold your opinions and defend your actions if you were not right in your own eyes. Fanatics must have justification, Torah, "ideology" - otherwise they would come into incompatible conflict with the supreme values ​​of every normal person: sanity, morality, truth, justice. So ladies and gentlemen, anyone who feels in relation to the conflict that has dominated our lives since we were born that "we are always good and just - they are always bad and guilty" or something like that - the lessons of the Holocaust require you to examine yourself individually and together lest you make mistakes and sin in your actions. You are only human.

 And another lesson I took from the Holocaust: if you feel that there is a danger here of a rise in fascist moods, of moral brutality, of dehumanization of the Arabs and of verbal violence instead of discourse; If you experience violent reactions to your opinions and unwillingness to discuss, consider and listen - do not complete and do not be left alone. Do not wait for it to pass, because if you wait it will not pass but will strengthen and surround you as well. Reach out to people near and far by trying to create communication, not quarrel. Do not argue but listen respectfully to the person, and when the outburst from the other side ends, convey only the message of humanity: You are only a human being like me - you know you may be wrong. You know you may sin in your relationship to the other side of the conflict. And they, our enemies, the Arabs or the leftists, are also human beings like you, each one unique, each one entitled to life, liberty, and to be treated justly.

 And for those who are religious - remember that God is a judge of justice and does not make any moral assumptions for Jews.

[eretzyisrael]

Don Seeman

In 1845, Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Mikhel Wisser, better known by his acronym and nom de plume ‘Malbim,’ published his first biblical commentary, on Megillat Esther. Malbim is often characterized as a conservative commentator who defended traditional rabbinic exegesis and the sanctity of biblical texts. Yet his underappreciated commentary on Esther also contains the seeds of a radical political hermeneutic that might even be described as “proto-feminist” because it explores the political roots and consequences of women’s oppression. We are used to thinking of Esther as a heroine who saved her people, but Malbim’s analysis goes beyond the role of any individual person to describe how it was, in his view, that the systematic disempowerment of women in general helped to create the political conditions for genocide in Megillat Esther. This is a shockingly modern sort of analysis for a commentator better known for his fierce opposition to religious reform in the lands he served as rabbi.

For Malbim, the mise en scene of Esther is Ahasuerus’ meteoric rise to power and the political intrigue that would have accompanied such an upheaval. He notes, for example, that the biblical story begins just three years into Ahasuerus’ reign, when he still would have been consolidating power, and cites a midrash that portrays Ahasuerus as a commoner who seized power.[1] This is not historical research. Instead, it is a form of biblical interpretation grounded in rabbinic exegesis and it needs to be appreciated in that vein.

Crucially for his account of gender politics in this book, Malbim adopts a midrash that portrays Vashti as a daughter of the supplanted royal house, suggesting that her marriage to Ahasuerus would have been a political matter contributing to the legitimacy of his new regime.[2] This in fact is the heart of the story that Malbim wishes to tell, because it helps to make sense of the first two chapters of the book whose proliferation of details about drinking and life in the capital might otherwise have seemed superfluous. For Malbim, Ahasuerus’ political dependence on his wife sets up a dynamic of murderous intrigue that reverberates through the book.

Political Prologue: “It’s Good to be the King!”

In his somewhat lengthy prologue to the commentary, Malbim elaborates on two broad theories of government that would have been very familiar to his nineteenth century readers. In a limited or constitutional monarchy, he writes, royal power is constrained by law and by a conception of the common good. Sometimes the king even needs to demonstrate that he has received the consent of the governed. Not so the absolute or unlimited monarch, who rules by fiat as both lawgiver and king simultaneously. In Malbim’s account—which he tries to illustrate through close reading of biblical and rabbinic texts—Ahasuerus seized power from a constitutional monarch but was set on absolutizing his rule through a series of very intentional stratagems that required him to sideline or eliminate his wife. Faced by the ancient rabbinic conundrum whether to portray Ahasuerus as a wise or a foolish king, Malbim decides from the outset to treat him as someone who knows what he wants and works deliberately to achieve his goals.[3]      

This kind of excursus in political philosophy is unusual among rabbinic commentators, but it is crucial to Malbim’s methodology, lending vital context to the plethora of small details on which he builds his interpretation. Why, for example, would Scripture devote so much attention to the lavish parties Ahasuerus held for his servants and subordinates throughout the whole third year of his reign? Malbim’s answer is that no mere constitutional monarch could have opened the state coffers so brazenly for his own aggrandizement. Ahasuerus understood that people would be less likely to object to the precedent he was trying to set if they were included among its early beneficiaries.[4]

Why specify, furthermore, that Ahasuerus had invited three distinct groups to these parties: the nobles and princes of Persia, the nobles of the (conquered) provinces and ultimately “all the people who were present in Shushan the palace, both great and small?”[5] As a commoner who had seized power in a large and centralized empire, Ahasuerus wanted to signal that the traditional Persian elites (who would have been most likely to challenge the legitimacy of his rule) had no more access to him than anyone else. Extending invitations to lowly servants conveyed to Ahasuerus’ more privileged guests that “both great and small are equal before him for all are [merely] his servants.”[6]

This flattening of the political structure may not have immediately weakened the Persian nobility but it would have stoked the fires of a fiercely populistic loyalty to the new king among the leaders of the disenfranchised, non-Persian provinces and the lower Persian classes who had been systematically excluded from most of the benefits of the constitutional—but colonial and deeply class conscious—state Ahasuerus had come to dominate.        

Malbim certainly gives signs in his commentary of a preference for constitutional monarchy, yet he implicitly lays the groundwork for a critique of both constitutional and authoritarian regimes. Ahasuerus’ attention to the provinces and to the servant class of Shushan could not have been successful unless there were already deep reservoirs of disaffection throughout the empire. Malbim never says this in so many words, but the pretense of a state governed by law for the common good may not have appealed so much to the provincial nobles chafing under imperial rule or the underclass of Shushan whom Ahasuerus had been so careful to flatter. Malbim’s deep personal intuition for the workings of power in social contexts makes him a profound commentator on a book devoted to the intrigues of a royal court, but these same intuitions sometimes seem to outstrip his commitment to critical analysis of the world beyond the text.

Every Man Should be Master in his Own House: On Misogyny and Power

Vashti, we have seen, poses a special problem for Ahasuerus. She is at once the key to his legitimacy in the eyes of the traditional Persian elites and the most distressing evidence that his independent power is limited. So, at the end of his long populist campaign, when his heart was “merry with wine,” Ahasuerus cleverly sends his chamberlains to summon the queen.[7] Sending his own servants rather than those who normally attend upon her was meant, in Malbim’s reading, to signal his disrespect. If she answered his call it would be a symbolic victory for him and if she refused it might present him with an opportunity to move against her. Directly attacking her dignity as the daughter of a royal house, he he also summons her “to show the people and the princes her beauty,” as if her attractiveness outstripped the importance of her royal person and pedigree.[8] By demanding that she appear wearing her royal crown, according to one well-known midrash, the king went so far as to intimate that she should appear before the gaze of his servants, dressed in nothing else.[9]

Malbim pointedly ignores several popular midrashim that attribute Vashti’s refusal of the king’s summons to mere vanity because she had developed a skin disease or even (miraculously) grown a tail.[10] I consider it a scandal of Jewish education that these fanciful midrashim belittling Vashti are often the only ones taught to children, while more substantive readings like Malbim’s are ignored. Ever the close reader, Malbim notes that Ahasuerus called for “Vashti the Queen,” putting her private name first to emphasize that her status was derived from marriage to him while she responds as “Queen Vashti,” emphasizing that her own rank came first.[11] Read this way, her refusal of the king’s summons constitutes a self-conscious act of political resistance because she understood what her husband was trying to accomplish at her expense.

Baiting Vashti in this way would have been a dangerous strategy for Ahasuerus because the Persian nobility was likely to side with her in any serious dispute. Malbim thinks that Ahasuerus still loved her and did not wish her condemned to death but that his advisor Memukhan ultimately prevailed with the argument that Vashti’s public challenge had to be treated as an offense of the state if Ahasuerus’ plans for unlimited government were ever to be achieved.[12] Her offense should not, moreover, be framed in the context of Ahasuerus’ political struggle with the last remaining representative of the old royal house but as a woman’s rebellion against her husband, thus implicating every man in the desire to see her put in her place. Ahasuerus’ cabinet would have to work quickly, because Malbim assumes that both Vashti and the Persian noblewomen with whom she had feasted had already seen through this subterfuge and might work to subvert it.[13] So they released a royal edict banning her from the king’s presence almost immediately before following up with seemingly unrelated letters “to every province according to its writing and to every people according to their language that every man should be master in his own house and speak according to the language of his people.”[14]

On the level of political rhetoric, Ahasuerus’ executive order must have seemed a master stroke because of all that it simultaneously accomplished. Malbim thinks that by emphasizing that the letters were to be sent in the diverse languages of the polyglot empire, Ahasuerus was once again stoking popular resentment against the Persian elites who used to demand that all state business be conducted in Persian.[15]Apparently, “cultural diversity” can be coopted by authoritarian state power as easily as any other ideology under the right circumstances. More importantly, Ahasuerus’ letter would have distracted people from his naked power grab by disguising it as the utterly ordinary resentment of a husband whose wife has defied him, guaranteeing the support of other men who feared the rebellion of their own wives in turn. Could he have found a more potent strategy for harnessing their resentment? In the 1970’s it began to be said in some quarters that “the personal is political,” but Ahasuerus’ letters represent the utter suppression of that frame by insisting that the political is merely personal. Whether or not she was finally executed—as Malbim assumes—Vashti’s resistance had been nullified.

On Purim and Genocide

One of the extraordinary features of Malbim’s commentary is how little it initially focuses on the fate of the Jews. For Malbim, that fate rested not just on divine providence but on an exceedingly subtle reading of contemporary events by social actors holding a wide a variety of different political aspirations. Ahasuerus had no particular brief against the Jews, according to Malbim, but was ultimately manipulated by his advisor Haman the Amalekite, who bore Mordekhai a personal and hereditary grudge. Without mentioning who the targets of his wrath would be, Haman tells the king that “there is a certain [unnamed] people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom . . . who follow their own laws and do not obey the king.”[16] Haman convinces Ahasuerus that extermination of the Jews will be welcomed by all the nations of the empire whose support he has been seeking. Driven by hatred rather than financial gain, Haman even offers to fill the king’s coffers with the Jews’ money rather than keeping it for himself.

Astoundingly, Ahasuerus turns down Haman’s offer of booty because his own intentions at this point are merely to “improve his nation by destroying the harmful religion and its vices.”[17] One may easily perceive here an echo of Malbim’s critique of reformers and state agents in his own day who claimed to be interested in public morality or “progress” but whose efforts were often construed by traditionalists as efforts to assimilate or destroy the Jewish people.[18] Be that as it may, Ahasuerus ultimately accedes to Haman’s request and once more sends letters throughout the land allowing the Jews to be exterminated.[19] Later, when Esther intervenes with the king on her people’s behalf yet a third group of letters must be sent, giving the Jews the right to bear arms in self-defense.[20]

So where does this leave us? A curious Talmudic text suggests that “had it not been for the first set of letters” in Megillat Esther “no remnant or remainder of the Jews would have survived.”[21] As Rashi glosses, the “first set of letters” refers to the one that mandated male control of the household in the first chapter of Esther. The rule that every man should “speak the language of his own people” is taken to mean that women who marry a man from a different ethnic or linguistic group than their own must limit themselves to speaking in their husbands’ language.[22] But such a decree was so clearly daft and unenforceable that it cast all of the king’s subsequent decrees into disrepute.[23] When the letter about exterminating the Jews later arrived, most people dismissed it as another laughable farce, and this allowed the Jews to mount a successful defense against the relatively few who did attack them.

Malbim and a few other interpreters have a different reading, whose direct source in rabbinic literature (if there is one) I have not yet been able to identify. Malbim’s version, which he attributes without specific citation to “our sages” reads “if it were not for the first set of letters, the second set could never have been fulfilled.”[24] On this reading, the second set of letters were the ones permitting the extermination of the Jews, and the meaning is that Haman could never have conspired to kill the Jews in a constitutional monarchy.[25] The first set of letters disempowering women paved the way for Ahasuerus to become an absolute monarch and it was only under those conditions that a genocide of the kind Haman plotted could ever have a chance to succeed. To put it simply, the murder of Vashti and the suppression of women throughout the empire paved the way for Haman’s projected Holocaust.

Though this is bound to be provocative, I have referred to Malbim’s commentary on Esther as proto-feminist for a few reasons. First, because this commentary demonstrates how the systematic domination of women served broader imperial interests and was also enhanced by blurring the relation between patriarchal domination of households and despotic domination of the empire. Under Ahasuerus, women (starting with Vashti) had to be controlled or neutralized so that the household could serve as a model for the state, even while the state claimed to be modeled on the structure of households. This sort of mutually reinforcing dynamic or political cosmology is by now a commonplace of social analysis, but it wasn’t in 1845.[26]

Malbim shows, moreover, that the political project of misogyny formed a necessary prelude to authoritarian rule and genocide. Jews reflecting on Purim ought to reflect as well on the ways in which the fate of the Jews cannot help but be embedded in larger structures of power that also determine the fates of other groups, including women and all those other peoples (some of them also quite vulnerable) who also inhabit our necessarily imperfect political regimes. Though the Megillah and its commentators certainly assume a transcendent significance to the travails of Israel, a reader shaped by Malbim’s commentary would also have to conclude that those travails can only be understood by reference to a much broader canvas of interlocking stories, political calculations, and tribulations suffered by others. “Without the first set of letters,” Malbim reminds us, “the second set of letters could never have been fulfilled.”

Concluding Thoughts

Malbim’s interests in the commentary on Esther bear witness more to his thoughtfulness as a reader than to any explicit political project, and that is why I only referred to his commentary, in all fairness, as proto-feminist. I do not mean to imply that he would himself have subscribed to any of the much later developments in feminist thought or practice, including those that seem to be at issue in contemporary Orthodox Jewish life. Given his attitude toward Reform in his own day, it would be odd to portray him as a hero of religious reforms in ours. But this is actually one of the reasons that his commentary on Esther is so profoundly unsettling. He isn’t trying to sell anything but a better reading, grounded in rabbinic sources, and a more nuanced appreciation for the dynamics of power. The fact that this leads him to an unprecedented analysis of gender politics in Scripture tells me that this is a discussion we ought to be having no matter what our stance on hot-button contemporary issues might be. At the very least, it will make us better students of Torah.

This is not a small thing. Does the fact that Malbim presaged later developments in gender theory and linked his observations about gender and politics to Scriptural interpretation mean that we can begin to have non-defensive conversations about these matters in religious settings? That our sons and daughters might be able to confront the complex realities of power in their own lives as well as Tanakh rather than focusing almost exclusively on fanciful midrashim about Vashti’s physical deformities?  Or that we might recapture the importance of political philosophy to almost any kind of intelligible conversation about sacred Scripture? That may be a lot to rest on the back of one short commentary on a biblical book, but I am hardly deterred. Purim, after all, is a holiday of miracles.

Malbim learned about the dynamics of power on his own flesh in the decades following the publication of his commentary on Esther.[27] In 1859 he became chief rabbi of Bucharest in Romania but was denounced as an enemy of the state because of his fierce opposition to various reforms and assimilationist policies. Moses Montefiore intervened to save him from being sent to prison but he was exiled and forced to seek redress from the Turkish government in Constantinople. He spent the remaining twenty years of his life embroiled in controversies with reformers and state authorities in a variety of cities across Europe and finally died in 1879 while traveling to assume a new rabbinical post. A committed traditionalist of deep learning and broad intellectual horizons, Malbim can be read with profit today not just for the specific positions he took (these are inextricably tied to his time and circumstances) but for the habits of mind and spirit that writings like his commentary on Esther exemplify. Within a traditional frame, he sought more complex and contextually coherent understandings of Jewish literature and Jewish life. At a moment when many are struggling with renewed passion to comprehend the intersection of different potential forms of oppression (racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny) and also questioning the forms of political discourse in which more constitutional or more authoritarian trends might come to the fore of our national life, Malbim should be on the curriculum.

[1] See Esther 1:3; Esther Rabbah 1:4.

[2] See, for example, Esther Rabbah 3:14.

[3] See Megillah 12a.

[4] Malbim on Esther 1:4.

[5] Esther 1: 5.

[6] See Esther 1:3-5.

[7] Esther 1: 10-11.

[8] Esther 1: 11; Esther Rabbah 3: 14.

[9] Esther Rabbah 3: 13-14.

[10] See Megillah 12b.

[11] See Malbim on Esther 1: 9.

[12] Malbim on Esther 1: 16.

[13] See Esther 1:9 and Malbim on Esther 1: 17.

[14] Esther 1: 19-22.

[15] Malbim on Esther 1: 22.

[16] Esther 3: 8.

[17] See Esther 3: 11, in which the king gives Haman the treasure to do with as he sees fit, as well as Malbim’s comment on that verse.

[18] Malbim would not have been alone in that regard. See for example Barukh Halevy Epstein’s account of rabbinic interactions with the Jewish reformer, Rabbi Max Lilienthal, in his memoir Mekor Barukh: Zikhronot Me-Hayyei Ha-Dor Ha-Kodem Vol. IV, chs. 43-44 (Vilna: Rom Publishers, 1928), 1850-1927. For an analysis of this and other relevant sources, see Don Seeman and Rebecca Kobrin, “‘Like One of the Whole Men’: Learning, Gender and Autobiography in R. Barukh Epstein’s Mekor Barukh,” Nashim 2 (1999): 59-64.

[19] Esther 3: 12-14.

[20] Esther 8: 10-14.

[21] Megillah 12b; also see Pesikta Zutrata (Lekah Tov) Esther 1:22.

[22] Rashi on Esther 1: 22. See similarly Hakhmei Zarfat cited on the same verse in Torat Hayyim: Megillat Esther ‘im Perushei Ha-Rishonim (Jerusalem: Mossad Ha-Rav Kook, 2006), 48. See Esther Rabbah 4: 12 and additional sources cited by Torah Shelemah Megilat Esther (Jerusalem: Noam Aharon Publishers, 1994), 50n.187.

[23] See Rashi to Megillah 12b s.v. Iggerot Rishonot.

[24] Malbim to Esther 1:22

[25] Ibid.

[26] For a few ethnographic treatments of the relationship between cosmologies of gender and state regimes, see, for example, Carol Delaney, The Seed and the Soil: Gender and Cosmology in Turkish Village Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Sally Cole, Women of the Praia: Work and Lives in a Portuguese Coastal Community (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); Rebecca J. Lester, Jesus in our Wombs: Embodying Modernity in a Mexican Convent  (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).

[27] See Yehoshua Horowitz’s  entry on Malbim in Encyclopedia Judaica Vol. XI (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing, 1971), 822-23.